Antebellum Reform: 1790-1860
Themes Second Great Awakening reenergized American religion Led to new reform movements seeking a perfect society no cruelty, war, drink, discrimination, slavery A new national culture emerged
The Pursuit of Perfection In Antebellum America
A Third Revolution! 1. Politics 2. Economics 3. Social commitment to improve the character of ordinary Americans Begins with religion REFORM MOVEMENTS: Women s rights, temperance, education, literature, utopias, anti-slavery
Religion ¾ still going to church regularly Softer orthodoxy NOT like Calvinism Thomas Paine s Age of Reason Churches were set up to terrify and enslave mankind; Monopolize power and profit
Liberal Enlightenment views challenged traditional religious beliefs Deism reason over revelation, science over Bible Rejected original sin & denied Christ s divinity Supreme Being created universe and let it run; Humans willfully made moral choices Unitarianism (Deism spin-off) God exists in 1 person, not the Trinity Humans are good, have free will, salvation through good works God is a loving father Appealed to intellectuals, rational and optimistic
Describe religion in the early 1800s.
The Second Great Awakening Reaction against liberalism a religious revival Spiritual fervor = converted souls, reorganized churches, new sects Huge camp meetings to spread message to the masses (25,000 listen for days) Engaged in frenzies of rolling, dancing, barking, jerking Boosted church membership and stimulated other reforms Many went back to old ways Led to feminization of religion Middle class women were most enthusiastic; Offered them an active role in society
The Second Great Awakening Spiritual Reform From Within [Religious Revivalism] Social Reforms & Redefining the Ideal of Equality Temperance Abolitionism Education Asylum Reform Women s Rights
Methodists and Baptists stressed personal conversion, democratic control over church affairs, emotionalism
Religious Camp Meeting by J. Maze Burbank, 1839
Methodist camp meeting, March 1, 1819, Engraving
Peter Cartwright best of Methodist circuit riders traveling frontier preachers -very aggressive punched those who tried to break up his meetings
Charles Grandison Finney- greatest of the revival preachers -perfectionism wanted a perfect Christian kingdom on Earth -massive revival in NY -denounced alcohol and slavery -anxious bench repentant sinners sit in full view of congregation -women pray in public
Connect to the 1 st Great Awakening Similar? Different? Preachers?
The Benevolent Empire : 1825-1846
Second Great Awakening Revival Meeting
Denominational Diversity Western NY known as the Burned-Over District sermonizers preached hellfire and damnation Many Puritan descendants Millerites/Adventists William Miller Christ would return on October 22, 1844; Didn t come = dampened movement New sects + Methodists + Baptists = less prosperous areas, less literate in South and West North and East conservative denominations (Presbyterian, Congregationalist) Churches split due to slavery issue
The Burned-Over District in Upstate New York
Mormons in Utah Joseph Smith Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormon) Golden plates given to him by an angel were deciphered into the Book of Mormon Opposition (OH, Missouri, Illinois) toward Mormons due to polygamy, drilling militia, and voting as a unit Smith and brother were murdered and mangled by mob in Carthage, IL
His successor, Brigham Young, ( Mormon Moses ) led followers to Utah made desert bloom with irrigation 5000 settlers by 1848 Rigid discipline = frontier cooperative theocracy Young had 27 wives, 56 children 1000s of immigrants came Young became governor in 1850 federal govt didn t like this no control Federal army marched there in 1857 Utah War Young stepped down as governor Congress passed anti-polygamy laws Mormons didn t follow Unique marital customs kept Utah from becoming a state
Violence Against Mormons
The Mormon Trek
The Mormons (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) Desert community. Salt Lake City, Utah Brigham Young (1801-1877)
What might be a possible test question on the Mormons?
Public Education Many didn t want free public education Pay taxes to educate poor? Changed minds poor will grow up to be dangerous, ignorant rabble armed with the vote Tax-supported public education triumphs! Little red schoolhouse 1 room, 1 teacher, 8 grades Open a few months of the year Teachers were typically men ill-trained, illtempered, ill-paid 3R s reading, writing, arithmetic NEEDS REFORM!
Catharine Beecher a. Major advocate for public education being done by female teachers b. Major proponent of the cult of domesticity
Horace Mann (1796-1859) Father of American Education
The McGuffey Readers
Winslow Homer: the Country School, 1871
Noah Webster Frontispiece of 1839 reissue of Noah Webster's The Elementary Speller
Higher Education 2 nd Great Awakening led to small, denominational liberal arts colleges (S & W) Academically weak, more about pride Traditional subjects: Latin, Greek, math, philosophy 1 st state supported universities began in South Land grants Univ of VA more modern, science & modern languages Women s higher ed frowned upon will injure her brain, make unfit for marriage Emma Willard Troy Female Seminary in NY Oberlin College in OH opened doors to women and blacks Mary Lyon Mount Holyoke Seminary in Mass. Outstanding women s school
Demon Rum = Temperance Movement Hard and monotonous life = excessive drinking Even women, clergy, politicians Weddings and funerals Less efficient labor, more accidents at work Threatened spirituality of family American Temperance Society Boston signed temperance pledges 1000 local groups sprouted up Children s clubs Cold Water Army T.S. Arthur s Ten Nights in a Barroom and What I Saw There - Village ruined by a tavern
Demon Rum 2 lines of attack: 1. Resist little by little temperance 2. Legislation Neal S. Dow Father of Prohibition mayor of Portland, Maine Less drinking by the Civil War
Alcohol Consumption in the U.S.: 1800-1860
Women s Rights Women stayed home, without voting rights but better off than Europe Many women avoided marriage 10% Women were perceived as weak physically and emotionally, but fine for teaching Teach young how to be good, productive citizens Men strong but crude, possible beasts if not guided by women Cult of domesticity 1. Piety religious 2. Purity used as weapon against sin, otherwise she is a fallen woman 3. Submissive to God, man, duty 4. Domestic This was not enough for women anymore
Women s Rights Lucretia Mott Quaker wasn t recognized at the World s Anti-slavery Convention Elizabeth Cady Stanton advocated women s suffrage Susan B. Anthony militant lecturer for women s rights Progressive women called Suzy B s Anthony and Stanton = National Woman Suffrage Association equality in court, workplace, poll
What It Would Be Like If Ladies Had Their Own Way! R2-8
Women s Rights Lucy Stone kept maiden name after marriage Others known as Lucy Stoners Amelia Bloomer against typical women s attire wore a short skirt with Turkish trousers Bloomers Seneca falls Convention in NY (1848) it was a major landmark in women s rights Declaration of Sentiments Women s rights movement was temporarily eclipsed by slavery issue
Anti-Slavery Grimke Sisters Frederick Douglass William Lloyd Garrison Went hand-in-hand with the women s movement
Angelina Grimké Sarah Grimké R2-9
Utopias Utopian spirit/perfectionism 40+ cooperative, communistic communities Robert Owen s New Harmony Brook Farm, Mass. Oneida Community, NY founded by John Humphrey Noyes Practiced free love, birth control, eugenic selection of parents to produce superior offspring Shakers a religious community(led by Mother Ann Lee)
Utopian Communities
Transcendentalism Truth transcends all not just found by observation Each possesses an inner light that can illuminate highest truth and put him in touch with God Themes: Individualism Self-reliance Non-conformity Exaltation of the dignity of the individual *Against authority and conventional wisdom
Transcendentalist Intellectuals/Writers Ralph Waldo Emerson Henry David Thoreau Nature (1832) Self-Reliance (1841) Walden (1854) Resistance to Civil Disobedience (1849) The American Scholar (1837)
A Transcendentalist Critic: Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) Their pursuit of the ideal led to a distorted view of human nature and possibilities: * The Blithedale Romance One should accept the world as an imperfect place: * Scarlet Letter * House of the Seven Gables
Transcendentalism Walt Whitman Leaves of Grass collection of poems Poet Laureate of Democracy Romantic, emotional, unconventional
Penitentiary Reform Dorothea Dix (1802-1887) 1821 first penitentiary founded in Auburn, NY R1-5/7
Dorothea Dix Asylum - 1849
Scientific Achievement Professor Benjamin Silliman chemist and geologist at Yale Professor Louis Agassiz student of biology at Harvard, research emphasis John J. Audubon naturalist painted birds with exact detail, Birds of America Medicine in the U.S. still primitive bleeding was common cure Ill-health is typical improper diet, germs, decayed teeth Life expectancy for white male - 40
Scientific Achievement Most had decayed teeth Self-prescribed patent medicines were common, mostly alcohol and often harmful New medicines: Robertson s Infallible Worm Destroying Lozenges Fad diets whole wheat bread and crackers Rub tumors with dead toads Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes taught anatomy at Harvard Medical School Surgery tied down, given whiskey, Sawed/cut with speed 1840 laughing gas and ether as anesthetic
Art U.S. had traditionally imitated European styles of art 1800-1850 was a Greek revival in architecture; Gothic forms gained popularity in 1850 Early painters went to England for training and patrons Charles Wilson Peale and John Trumbull Hudson River School landscapes War of 1812 and nationalism Photograph Louis Daguerre
A Family Portrait captured by daguerreotype, c. 1852
Music Rhythmic and folky, darky tunes Dixie hymn adopted by Confederates Minstrel shows white actors with blackened faces
National Literature Early writing was practical Federalist Papers, Common Sense Writers typically in North and NE (Boston) Mix of nationalism and romanticism More emotional, celebrated human potential Knickerbocker Group in NY wrote the first truly American literature Washington Irving 1 st U.S. internationally recognized writings, The Sketch Book Rip Van Winkle and Legend of Sleepy Hollow
National Literature James Fennimore Cooper 1 st U.S. Novelist Leatherstocking Tales (which included The Last of the Mohicans) featured Natty Bumppo rifleman that meets Indians Contrasted values of wilderness with modern civilization William Cullen Bryant Thanatopsis the 1 st high quality poetry in U.S. Editor of NY Evening Post journalism model
Other Literary Greats Henry Wadsworth Longfellow popular poet, European themes + American traditions John Greenleaf Whittier poet of antislavery crusade, influenced social action James Russell Lowell Political satirist who wrote Biglow Papers- Mexican War and Polk administration Louisa May Alcott wrote Little Women Emily Dickinson poet, lived as recluse Universal themes of nature, love, death, immortality 2000 poems published after death William Gilmore Simms Southern - 82 books Theme of southern frontier in colonial days and Rev. War
Literary Individuals and Dissenters Edgar Allen Poe wrote The Raven and many horror short stories (drunken nightmares) Invented the modern detective novel and psychological thriller Fascinated by the supernatural and reflected a morbid sensibility (more prized in Europe) At odds with the optimistic spirit of this time Nathaniel Hawthorne Puritan obsession with original sin and good v. evil Scarlet Letter psychological effects of sin Herman Melville Moby Dick allegory between good and evil told by a whaling captain Exotic tales of the South Seas Widely ignored people liked more straightforward prose
Portrayers of the Past George Bancroft Sec. of Navy founded naval academy in Annapolis Father of American History superpatriotic history of US to 1789 (6 vol.) William H. Prescott conquest of Mexico and Peru Francis Parkman struggle b/w France and GB over N. America Historians all from New England books had an anti-south tone 1900 more nationalistic view