The new republic struggled to define and extend democratic ideals in the face of rapid economic, territorial, and demographic changes

4/7/2015

KEY CONCEPT 4.1, II

II. Concurrent with an increasing international exchange of goods and ideas, larger numbers of Americans began struggling with how to match democratic political ideals to political institutions and social realities.

B. Various groups of American Indians, women, and religious followers developed cultures reflecting their interests and experiences, as did regional groups and an emerging urban middle class.

*See handout on Husband’s & Wives

LARGEST REFORM MOVEMENTS:



Temperance



Abolition



Women’s Rights



Prison & Asylum Reform

The Rise of Popular Religion

In France, I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom pursuing courses diametrically opposed to each other; but in America, I found that they were intimately united, and that they reigned in common over the same country… Religion was the foremost of the political institutions of the United States.

-- Alexis de Tocqueville, 1832 R1-1

A.

The Second Great Awakening , liberal social ideas from abroad, and Romantic beliefs in human perfectibility fostered the rise of voluntary organizations to promote religious and secular reforms, including abolition and women’s rights.

The Second Great Awakening

“Spiritual Reform From Within” [Religious Revivalism] Social Reforms & Redefining the Ideal of Equality Temperance Asylum & Penal Reform Abolitionism Women’s Rights Education

“The Benevolent Empire”: 1825 - 1846

The “Burned-Over” District in Upstate New York

So-called because the revivalist movement was so strong in this area that there wasn’t anyone left to convert.

Second Great Awakening Revival Meeting

Charles G. Finney (1792 – 1895)

“soul-shaking” conversion

The ranges of tents, the fires, reflecting light…; the candles and lamps illuminating the encampment; hundreds moving to and fro…;the preaching, praying, singing, and shouting,… like the sound of many waters, was enough to swallow up all the powers of contemplation.

Required term:

•

Charles G. Finney R1-2

The Mormons

(The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints)

  

1823



Golden Tablets 1830



Book of Mormon

1844



Murdered in Carthage, IL Joseph Smith (1805-1844)

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 )

Mother Ann Lee

(1736-1784)

The Shakers



If you will take up your crosses against the works of generations, and follow Christ in the regeneration, God will cleanse you from all unrighteousness.



Remember the cries of those who are in need and trouble, that when you are in trouble, God may hear your cries.



If you improve in one talent, God will give you more.

R1-4

Shaker Meeting

Shaker Simplicity & Utility

Transcendentalism

(European Romanticism) 

Liberation from understanding and the cultivation of reasoning.”



“Transcend” the limits of intellect and allow the emotions, the SOUL, to create an original relationship with the Universe.



Transcendentalist Thinking

Man must acknowledge a body of moral truths that were intuitive and must TRANSCEND more sensational proof: 1.

The infinite benevolence of God.

2.

The infinite benevolence of nature.

3.

The divinity of man.



They instinctively rejected all secular authority and the authority of organized churches and the Scriptures, of law, or of conventions

Transcendentalism



Therefore, if man was divine, it would be wicked that he should be held in slavery, or his soul corrupted by superstition, or his mind clouded by ignorance!!



Thus, the role of the reformer was to restore man to that divinity which God had endowed them.

Transcendentalist Intellectuals/Writers Concord, MA

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nature

(1832)

Self-Reliance

(1841) “The American Scholar” (1837)

Walden

(1854) Henry David Thoreau

Resistance to Civil Disobedience

(1849) R3 1/3/4/5

The Transcendentalist Agenda



Give freedom to the slave.



Give well-being to the poor and the miserable.



Give learning to the ignorant.



Give health to the sick.



Give peace and justice to society.

A Transcendentalist Critic:

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) 

Their pursuit of the ideal led to a distorted view of human nature and possibilities:



One should accept the world as an imperfect place: * Scarlet Letter * House of the Seven

Gables

Secular Utopian Communities

Individual Freedom



spontaneity



self-fulfillment Required term: Utopian communities Demands of Community Life



discipline



organizational hierarchy

Utopian Communities

The Oneida Community -

New York, 1848

John Humphrey Noyes (1811-1886)

  

Millenarianism --> the 2 nd coming of Christ had already occurred.

Humans were no longer obliged to follow the moral rules of the past.

carefully regulated “free love.”



all residents married to each other.

Robert Owen (1771-1858)

Utopian Socialist “Village of Cooperation”

Original Plans for New Harmony, IN

New Harmony in 1832

New Harmony, IN

Penitentiary Reform

Dorothea Dix (1802-1887) 1821



first penitentiary founded in Auburn, NY

Dorothea Dix Asylum - 1849

RELIGIOUS REFORMS (NON- SECULAR)

Example: Women’s Christian Temperance Union

Temperance Movement

1826 - American Temperance Society “Demon Rum”!

R1-6 Frances Willard The Beecher Family



Alcohol equated with new immigration – Irish Catholics



People cashed their paychecks at local bars



Domestic abuse was common and rarely prosecuted

Annual Consumption of Alcohol

Educational Reform

Secular (not religious)



MA



always on the forefront of public educational reform * 1 st state to establish tax support for local public schools.



By 1860 every state offered free public education to whites.

* US had one of the highest literacy rates.

Horace Mann

(1796-1859)

“Father of American Education”



children were clay in the hands of teachers and school officials



children should be “molded” into a state of perfection

 

established state teacher-training programs discouraged corporal punishment R3-6

The McGuffey Eclectic Readers  

Used religious parables to teach “American values.” Teach middle class morality and respect for order.



Teach “3 Rs” + “Protestant ethic” (frugality, hard work, sobriety) R3-8

“Separate Spheres” Concept

“Cult of Domesticity”



A woman’s “sphere” was in the home (it was a refuge from the cruel world outside).



Her role was to “civilize” her husband and family.

The power of woman is her dependence. A woman who gives up that dependence on man to become a reformer yields the power God has given her for her protection, and her character becomes unnatural!

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

Early 19c Women

Unable to vote.

Legal status of a minor.

Single



Married could own her own property.



no control over her property or her children.

Could not initiate divorce.

Couldn’t make wills, sign a contract, or bring suit in court without her husband’s permission.

R2-9

Cult of Domesticity = Slavery

The 2 nd Great Awakening inspired women to improve society.



Southern Abolitionists



American Women’s Suffrage Assoc.



edited Woman’s Journal

R2-6/7

Women’s Rights

Lucretia Mott Elizabeth Cady Stanton 1848



Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments Required term:

•

Seneca Falls convention

Seneca Falls Declaration

B. Despite the outlawing of the international slave trade, the rise in the number of free African Americans in both the North and the South, and widespread discussion of various emancipation plans, the U.S. and many state governments continued to restrict African Americans’ citizenship possibilities.

Abolitionist Movement



Create a free slave state in Liberia, West Africa.



No real anti-slavery sentiment in the North in the 1820s & 1830s.

Gradualists Required term: American Colonization Society Immediatists

Anti-Slavery Alphabet

William Lloyd Garrison

(1801-1879) 

Slavery & Masonry undermined republican values.



Immediate emancipation with NO compensation.



Slavery was a moral, not an economic issue.

R2-4

Premiere issue



January 1, 1831 R2-5

Frederick Douglass (1817-1895)

1845



1847



The Narrative of the Life Of Frederick Douglass

“The North Star” Required term: Frederick Douglass R2-12

The Underground Railroad

The Underground Railroad



“Conductor” ==== leader of the escape



“Passengers” ==== escaping slaves



“Tracks” ==== routes



“Trains” ==== farm wagons transporting the escaping slaves



“Depots” ==== safe houses to rest/sleep

III. While Americans celebrated their nation’s progress toward a unified new national culture that blended Old World forms with New World ideas, various groups of the nation’s inhabitants developed distinctive cultures of their own.

C. Enslaved and free African Americans, isolated at the bottom of the social hierarchy, created communities and strategies to protect their dignity and their family structures, even as some launched abolitionist and reform movements aimed at changing their status. Required terms: Slave music, David Walker, Richard Allen Notes: Slave songs preserved culture and the underground railroad assisted people seeking freedom in the north. Many communities of freed slaves existed in the north, including part of Waverly, PA. Locally, there are 2 known ‘stations’ on the railroad, 1 on Abington Road in Clarks Green and 1 in Montrose

David Walker



Richard Allen



C. Resistance to initiatives for democracy and inclusion included proslavery arguments, rising xenophobia, anti-black sentiments in political and popular culture, and restrictive anti-Indian policies.

A. A new national culture emerged, with various Americans creating art, architecture, and literature that combined European forms with local and regional cultural sensibilities. Required terms: Hudson River School John James Audubon



Reform movements paralleled expansion movement – often put values in conflict