Transcript REFORM MOVEMENTS OF THE 1800S

REFORM MOVEMENTS OF
THE 1800S
Which reforms of the era had the
most lasting effect on the civil
rights and liberties of Americans?
• The first half of the nineteenth century was
a time of “movers and shakers,” people
who saw injustices in American society
and worked to abolish those injustices.
• These reforms would change the lives of
many individuals.
What were the major reform
movements of the 1800s?
•
•
•
•
•
Treatment of the mentally ill
Temperance movement
Abolition of slavery
Women’s rights
Education
Vocabulary to Know
• NINETEENTH CENTURY
– 1800s
• ABOLISH
– eliminate; get rid of
• INJUSTICE
– unfairness; inequality
• REFORMER
– someone who changes something by
correcting faults and removing abuses
TREATMENT OF THE
MENTALLY ILL
Leader: Dorothea Dix
GOAL: better
treatment of
persons with
mental illnesses
REASON:
the mentally
ill were badly
treated
TREATMENT OF THE
MENTALLY ILL
• People believed (early 1800s) that if people did
not contribute to the economy they were
useless.
• As a result, debtors, children who were
offenders, and the mentally ill were often locked
up in jails with murderers and thieves.
• Dorothea Dix and other reformers worked to
change Americans’ ways of thinking about these
institutions and their inmates.
TREATMENT OF THE
MENTALLY ILL
• Dorothea Dix first observed prison
conditions while teaching Sunday school
at a Boston prison for women in 1841.
• She wanted to find out if all the prisons in
the state were as appalling.
• Over a two-year period, Dix investigated
more than 800 prisons, jails, and
poorhouses.
TREATMENT OF THE
MENTALLY ILL
• She found the
prisoners were
often living in
inhumane
conditions.
TREATMENT OF THE
MENTALLY ILL
• Prisoners were often chained to the walls
with little or no clothing, often in unheated
cells.
TREATMENT OF THE
MENTALLY ILL
• To Dorothea Dix’s horror,
she learned that some of
the inmates were guilty of
no crime—they were
mentally ill persons.
Dorothea Dix Hospital, Raleigh, NC
TREATMENT OF THE
MENTALLY ILL
• Dix decided to appeal to the
Massachusetts government for help.
• In 1843 she addressed the following report
to the state legislature:
“I proceed, gentlemen, to call your attention to the
present state of Insane Persons confined…, in
cages, closets, cellars, stalls, pens! Chained,
naked, beaten with rods, and lashed into
obedience…”
TREATMENT OF THE
MENTALLY ILL
• As a result of Dix’s report, Massachusetts
passed a law to build mental hospitals
where mental illness could be treated as a
disease rather than a crime.
• By 1852, she had persuaded 11 states to
open hospitals for persons with mental
illness.
TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT
• Leader: American Temperance Union and
religious leaders
GOAL: to
eliminate
alcohol
abuse
REASON:
alcohol led
to crime,
poverty,
abuse of
family
TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT
• Religious leaders stood at the forefront of
the war against alcohol.
• Public drunkenness was common in the
early 1800s.
• Alcohol abuse was widespread, especially
in the West and among urban workers.
TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT
• Reformers blamed alcohol for:
– poverty
– breakup of families
– crime
– insanity
TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT
• Another effect of the easy-to-get alcohol
was the abuse of wives and children.
TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT
• Alcohol abuse was widespread during this
time.
• Employers often paid part of workers’
wages in rum or whiskey.
• Workers took rum breaks similar to today’s
coffee breaks!!
TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT
• The reformers began a campaign against
drinking.
• The campaign was
known as the
temperance movement.
TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT
• The American Temperance Society was
formed in 1826.
• Some: drink less alcohol!
• Some: Ban alcohol altogether!
TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT
TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT
• Northern and Southern temperance
societies used propaganda to win support
for their cause.
• They held meetings, gave speeches, and
distributed pamphlets.
• They even sang songs such as “Drink
Nothing, Boys, but Water,” and “Father,
Bring Home Your Money Tonight.”
Vocabulary Terms to Know
• TEMPERANCE
– restraint when using alcohol; abstinence from
alcohol
• POVERTY
– state or condition of being poor
ABOLITION OF SLAVERY
• Leaders: Quakers, Frederick Douglass,
Sojourner Truth, William Lloyd Garrison,
anti-slavery groups
GOAL:
end slavery
REASON:
it is immoral
for one
person to
own another
ABOLITION OF SLAVERY
• By 1840, nearly 2.5
million enslaved people
lived in the South.
• At one time, the North
also had slavery. By
1804 every Northern
state legislature had
passed laws to eliminate
it.
• The Southern economy,
though, depended on
slave labor.
ABOLITION OF SLAVERY
• An organized antislavery
movement didABOLISH
not begin
until after theSLAVERY!
Revolutionary War.
• A religious group, the
Quakers, started the
abolition movement.
Quakers had opposed
slavery since colonial
times. In 1775 the
Quakers organized the
first antislavery society.
ABOLITION OF SLAVERY
• The American
Colonization Society,
founded in 1817, wanted
to help free African
Americans.
• The society set up a
colony for free African
Americans in Liberia, in
western Africa.
• It was not successful
because many African
Americans wished to
remain in the United
States, their home.
ABOLITION OF SLAVERY
• In 1831 white abolitionist
William Lloyd Garrison
founded The Liberator, a
Boston anti-slavery
newspaper.
• In the first issue, Garrison
demanded the immediate
emancipation, or freeing,
of all enslaved persons.
• He urged abolitionists to
take action without delay.
ABOLITION OF SLAVERY
• The North had many
prominent African American
abolitionists.
• Isabella Baumfree = Freed
slave
• => Sojourner Truth
• She spoke against the
injustice of slavery.
ABOLITION OF SLAVERY
• The most important spokesperson
for the cause was Frederick
Douglass.
• Born into slavery, Douglass
secretly taught himself to read,
although Southern laws prohibited
it.
• He escaped from slavery in 1838
and settled in Massachusetts.
• He captivated audiences by talking
about his life in bondage.
• He spoke out against the injustices
faced by free African Americans.
ABOLITION OF SLAVERY
• Douglass edited an
abolitionist journal called
the North Star.
• Douglass’s speaking and
writing abilities so
impressed audiences that
opponents refused to
believe he had been a
slave!
• In response, he wrote
three very moving
autobiographies.
ABOLITION OF SLAVERY
• The Underground
Railroad began
c.1817.
• Not an actual
railroad but series
of safe houses
where abolitionists
hid runaway slaves
as they made their
way North.
ABOLITION OF SLAVERY
ABOLITION OF SLAVERY
• Harriet Tubman
became the most
famous African
American conductor
on the Underground
Railroad.
• Tubman fled from
slavery in 1849. Later
she explained why
she risked her life to
escape:
“There was one of
two things I had a
right to, liberty or
death; if I could
not have the one, I
would have the
other.”
ABOLITION OF SLAVERY
• Tubman helped slaves
escape on the
Underground Railroad.
• Led more than 300
enslaved people—
including her own
parents—to freedom.
• Slaveholders offered a
reward of $40,000 for her,
dead or alive.
• But she managed to
escape time after time.
Vocabulary to Know
• ABOLITIONIST
– a person who works to abolish, or get rid of,
slavery
• EMANCIPATION
– liberation; a setting free
Women’s Rights*
Leaders: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia
Mott, Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth
GOAL: obtain equal
rights for women,
including suffrage,
right to own property,
and education
REASON: women
did not have the
same rights as men
Women’s Rights
• July 19, 1848 Women’s
Rights Convention in
Seneca Falls, New
York.
• Declaration that “all men
and women are created
equal,” and women
should have the right to
vote.
Women’s Rights
• “We have good cause to be grateful to the
slave. In striving to strike his irons off, we
found…that we were manacled ourselves.”
• Abby Kelley, women’s activist
Women’s Rights
• Susan B. Anthony
-a powerful organizer/teacher
-abolitionist
-wanted African American vote
-rights for women: over children and wages
Vocabulary to Know
• SUFFRAGE
– right to vote; franchise
Education Reform
Leaders: Horace Mann
GOALS: to
educate all
Americans
REASON: need
educated voters
Could they really
vote, even though
they had won the
right?
“Education does better than to disarm the poor of their
hostility toward the rich; it prevents them from being poor.”
Historical Background
• 1647-- Massachusetts passed a law
requiring towns to provide schools for their
children. The rest of New England
adopted similar laws. The towns, not the
states, paid for the schools.
• Southerners worked or didn’t have $$ to
fund schools.
Education Reform
• African American
Suffrage: 1870 (15th
amendment)
• Women Suffrage:1920
(19th amendment)
• NEED educated voters!
What if they couldn’t
read?
Education Reform
• Common schools
• a.k.a. free, tax-supported, public schools
• In the 1830s few people paid state or
federal taxes. As a result, many strongly
objected to paying taxes for public
schools.
Education Reform
• Horace Mann
• Mann was especially concerned about poor
children who could not afford to go to school.
Think:
• How would common schools help the U.S.?
Education Reform
• During the 1840s and 1850s, the flood of
immigrants into the United States helped
free public schools gain general
acceptance. Many Americans realized
that schools were the ideal agents to teach
American values to the new arrivals.
Education Reform
• Girls’ Schools = morals and manners
 Women Only Colleges: seminary, medical school
 Still no higher education for African Americans 
Quiz yourself:
• What were the 5 major reform movements
of the 1800s?
• Which reform do you think had the most
lasting effect on the civil rights and
liberties of Americans? Why?
What were the major reform
movements of the 1800s?
•
•
•
•
•
Treatment of the mentally ill
Temperance movement
Abolition of slavery
Women’s rights
Education
REFORM MOVEMENTS
OF THE 1800s
Which reforms of the era had the most
lasting effect on the civil rights and
liberties of Americans?