Antebellum Reform Movements and Culture
Reform Movements
• Transportation and Communication revolutions accompanied by reform movements.
• Most reform movements
Colonial Religion
• ¾ of 23 million attend church in 1850
• The Age of Reason (1794) Thomas Paine– Churches are set up to
enslave mankind, and establish power
• Built on Deism– Reason, not revelation,
science not bible
Unitarianism • Deism helps inspire
Unitarianism in NE– God exists in one person, not
the wholly trinity
– Human nature is good not vile
– Free will
– Salvation is possible through good works
– Embraced most by intellectuals
– How does this compare to Calvinism?
2nd Great Awakening
• Starts on Southern frontier, spreads to northern cities
• Most momentous episode in American Religion
• Will be a huge cause in the reform movements
2nd Great Awakening
• Camp Meetings – thousands gather in the woods to listen to entertaining preachers
• 2nd GA helps Methodist and Baptists the most – Both stress personal
conversion, democratic control of church affairs, rousing emotionalism
2nd Great Awakening
• “Circuit Riders”- traveling frontier preachers
• Peter Cartwright – Methodists
• Charles Grandison Finny– Anxious bench- sinners
could sit in full view of congregation
– Women should pray out loud in public
– Against alcohol and slavery
2nd Great Awakening
• Feminization of religion in church membership and theocracy
• Middle class women make up most new members
• Trans. Comm. Revolutions = economy boom, 2nd GA allows women to bring God back to the family
Burned Over District
• Western NY• Too much hellfire and
damnation preaching• Spawns the Millerites
or Adventists • Christ will return to
earth in 1844…didn’t happen
2nd Great Awakening
• Widen lines between classes and religions• Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Congregationalists,
Unitarians= wealthy and educated, N and E • Methodists, Baptists, less educated, less prosperous-
S, W • Slavery encourages more splits
Mormons
• Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
• Founder = Joseph Smith• Opposition in OH,
Missouri, Ill• Why
– Cooperative sects– Vote as one– Train militias for defense
purposes – Polygamy
Mormons
• 1844- Smith is Murdered
• Brigham Young takes over- strict leader
• Moves them to Utah • Utah becomes
powerful theocracy and commonwealth
Free Schools
• Conservative Americans- worried that brats may grow up ignorant, and have right to vote
• Wealthy- taxation for education to provide a stable democracy
• Increased suffrage in west- huge supporters
• Education prior to the movement- One room school houses, all male teachers,
• “Book of larnin” taught 3 r’s, readin, ritin, ritmetic
Education Reformists
• Horace Mann- better school houses, longer school terms, expanded curriculum, better pay for teachers
• Schools still not that prevalent in US on even of civil war
• Blacks, not allowed in either north or South
• New TextBooks– Noah Webster-
“Schoolmaster of the Republic”
– Reading Lessons- promote patriotism
– Webster's Dictionary 1828
• William McGuffey- McGuffey’s Readers
Higher Education
• Usually made to establish local pride rather than promote education
• Women generally are not allowed, supposed to be in the home– Exception Oberlin
College OH (1837)
• Most adults attend lyceums- public lectures (RWE)
Reform Movements
• 2nd GA= inspired people to battle earthly evils
• Women (middle class) huge influence- chance to get out of house and enter public field
• Also formed in response to market economy
Prison Reform • Debt imprisonment is high• Capitol punishment starting
to decline (Europe)• Idea- prisons should also
reform guilty (house of corrections)
• Mentality ill chained liked beast among “normal” prisoners
• Dorthea Dix- reports prison conditions to Mass. Legislature- prisons get better, insanity is now starting to be considered an illness
Demon Rum- The “Old Deluder”
• Cons of alcohol– Drunks at important
religious events
– New industrial equipment is dangerous (sober or drunk)
– Undermine family unity
American Temperance Society
• Boston 1826• Known as cold water
army• Against evils of
alcohol• TS Arthur- Ten Nights
in a Baroom and What I Say
Temperance Movement • Moderates stress
temperance, no teetotalism (total elimination of intoxicants)
• Neal S Dow “Father of Prohibition”
• Supported Maine Law of 1851- no making or selling of liquor
• Other northern states follow suit
• Most prohibition laws are repealed because of difficulty enforcing
Women’s Movements
• Women very similar to slaves, can’t read, subordinate to master (husband), can’t vote, can legally be beaten
• Spinsters- single women, roughly 10% at time of ACW
Women’s Movement • Gender Roles • Market economy creates
larger division in gender roles
• Women seen as physically/emotionally weak, but keepers of society’s conscience
• Men are in danger of slipping into savage way of life, if not guided by gentle woman’s hand
Women’s Movement • Some women ( white and middle class) see home as a
prison• Most want women’s rights, but also temperance, and
abolition Why• Lucretia Mott- antislavery convention in London
1840• Elizabeth Cady Stanton- advocated woman’s suffrage• Susan B Anthony most popular- followers called
Suzy B’s • Elizabeth Blackwell- first female graduate of Medical
Profession• Grimke Sisters- abolitionists
Women’s Movement
• Women’s Rights Convention at Seneca Falls 1848 (Stanton)
• “Declaration of Sentiments” all men and women are created equal
• Demanded for women’s right to vote
• Launches modern women’s right movement
Wilderness Utopias
• Cooperative, communitarian communities • Robert Owen – New Harmony 1825 (IN) –socialism• Brook Farm 1841 (Mass)- • Oneida Community- 1848- Free Love, birth control,
Eugenic Selection.– Survived largely due to strong steel traps and silver making
• Shakers- Brought from England, longest lasting- but celibacy kills membership, done by 1940
Dawn of Scientific Achievement
• Most innovations come from Europe
• Exceptions • Most influential scientist-
Benjamin Silliman• John Audubon- painted
wildlife, spawned Audubon Society
Medicine…still in the Dark Ages
• Bleeding• Small pox is dreaded• Life expectancy short (40 years)• Ignorant of germs and sanitation • Blacksmith = dentist • Home doctors• Cure all fads common• Anesthesia = hard whiskey
Art in Antebellum America
• Early- no contribution to world, we are just trying to survive
• Puritanism- art is idle use of time
• Hudson River School – art going from human landscapes, to local landscapes
Music in Antebellum America
• Minstrel Shows – white actors with blackened faces
Antebellum Literature
• Knickerbocker Group • Washington Irving
– Rip Van Winkle, Legend of Sleepy Hollow
• James Cooper- – Last of the Mohicans
• William Cullen Bryant– Editor of NY Evening
Post
Transcendentalism Movement
• Knowledge doesn’t just come from observation (senses)
• Every person has inner light that can illuminate the highest truth and put person in direct touch with god or oversoul
• Ralph Waldo Emerson- American Scholar- get rid of European traditions, start American traditions
Transcendentalism Movement
• Henry David Thoreau• Walden: Or life in the
Woods (1854)• On the Duty of Civil
Disobedience
• Walt Whitman • Collection of poems-
Leaves of Grass
Other American Authors
• Henry Wadsworth– Song of Hiawatha
• Louisa May Alcott– Little Women
• Emily Dickinson• Edgar Allen Poe
Literary Individualists and Dissenters
• Continue with Calvinist’s ideas of struggling with original sin
• Nathaniel Hawthorne- Scarlet Letter
• Herman Melville – Moby Dick
American Historians…kinda
• George Bancroft = “Father of American History”
• William H. Prescott • Francis Parkman• Most are from Boston• Celebratory view of
history