Reform in American Society

America’s Spiritual Awakening Section 1

Second Great Awakening

• During the early decades of the

19 th Century, people again turned to religion

• In many cases it was for the

same reasons which led to the First Great Awakening in the 1700s – fear of change

Great Awakenings First Second

• Fate controlled by

omnipotent God

• People could not

save selves from damnation

• Religion=fear • “Sinners in the

Hands of an Angry God”

• In US and Europe • Free will • People could seek

salvation and control destiny

• Focus on saving

soul, not hellfire and damnation.

• Led to reforms

in the North

Charles G. Finney

• Finney preached in NY • His message differed

from that of Jonathan Edwards

• People could be saved and seek

salvation

• Conversion brought thousands

back to the church

Religion in the 19

th

Century

• Revivals were held throughout the

country, but were most effective in the North

• New converts were asked to

examine their soul and become a better person

Religion in the 19

th

Century

• African-American churches united

slaves in a common belief of freedom

• Churches in the north, like Rev.

Richard Allen’s Bethel African Church, provided a cultural center

Transcendentalists

• In the early and mid-1800s, a

group of people started looking at the world, religion and the changing economy in a different way.

• Most sought a simpler life and

focused on emotions and feeling

Transcendentalists

• Ralph Waldo Emerson – writer • Henry David Thoreau – Walden

and Civil Disobedience

• Unitarians – religious group who

tried to make people better through reforms

Utopian Communities

• Shakers -

Lee, 6000 members in several states

• Forbid marriage and sex • Lack of members caused

its demise

• Amana settlement

allowed marriage and survived Religious, Mother Ann

Utopian Communities

• Brook Farm -

founded by George Ripley

• Communal living where everyone

worked for the common good.

Utopian Communities Before the Civil War

Utopian Communities

• Utopian communities generally

failed within a few years due to lack of funding or internal problems.

American Romantics

• True romanticism believes that every individual brings a certain uniqueness to the world and are therefore valuable for their individual contributions • Thomas Cole: painted western landscapes • Nathaniel Hawthorne: • Emily Dickinson

The Scarlet Letter and Moby Dick

• Edgar Allan Poe: the Raven • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Walt Whitman: great patriotic poet • Wonderful expressions of individual joy and pain is portrayed during this era

Section 2 Early Immigration and Urban Reform

Main Idea

A wave of Irish and German immigrants entered the United States during a period of urbanization and reform.

Reading Focus

• Why did many Irish and Germans immigrate to the United States in the 1840s and 1850s?

• What was life in the United States like for the new immigrants?

• How did urbanization and industrialization lead to reform?

Irish and German Immigrants

• Since the 1700s, the poor people of Ireland had relied on the potato as their staple, or major, food crop.

• From 1845 to 1849, a disease, or blight, struck the crop, severely restricting the potato harvest.

• Deprived of their primary food source and receiving little relief from the ruling British government, Ireland’s poor faced starvation.

• By 1850 about 1 million had died during the Great Irish Famine.

• Desperate to save themselves and their families, about 1.5 million of them settled in the United States.

Irish and German Immigrants

• Like the Irish, many Germans were fleeing conditions in their homeland . • Some fled economic depression and overpopulation, which made jobs scarce • Others left to escape religious persecution, harsh tax laws, or military service.

• Still others fled their country after a revolution in 1848 failed .

. • Many Germans came to the United States in search of free land and business opportunities.

• Push-pull model of immigration: factors that cause people to leave their homeland are “pushes,” and factors that cause people to move to a particular country are called “pulls.”

The Lives of Immigrants

• Many immigrant groups to the United States have faced discrimination.

• As the number of Irish immigrants grew, so too did these feelings of nativism, or opposition to immigration.

• But the influx of a huge number of poor, Catholic, Irish immigrants in such a short time changed many Americans’ views.

• They began to regard immigrants as a threat to their way of life.

The Lives of Immigrants

• Nearly as many Germans as Irish immigrated to the United States in the mid-1800s.

• Fortunately for the Germans, they did not encounter the same hostility that greeted Irish immigrants.

• Most German immigrants were middle class and Protestant.

• They could afford to travel far inland, seeking free or cheap land, reunions with relatives, or other opportunities in the heartland.

• German immigrants worked as farmers, artisans, factory workers, and in other occupations.

Reform, Urbanization, and Industrialization

• By the mid-1800s, large American cities were home to some tremendously wealthy people. • The vast majority of urban Americans, however, were very poor. • Many city-dwellers lived in tenements, or poorly made, crowded apartment buildings.

• Lacked adequate light, ventilation, and sanitation – They were very unhealthy places to live.

• Disease spread rapidly in the crowded conditions.

Reform, Urbanization, and Industrialization

• In some cities, local boards of health were established to set sanitation rules. • Enforcement was often uneven, and the poorer neighborhoods received less attention than richer ones.

• Local reform societies reached only a fraction of those who needed help.

• For the most part, the poor of America’s large cities fended for themselves, helping their families, neighbors, and friends as best they could.

• Serious efforts at reforming cities would not begin until late in the century.

Reform, Urbanization, and Industrialization

• Previously, most Americans had worked on farms. – Worked for themselves, kept the profits they earned, and made much of what they needed • American factory workers were wage earners who were paid a set amount by business owners . • Using their limited wages, they had to buy the things they needed from merchants in the city where they lived .

• A new social class arose: the urban working class.

– Most of them were poor and uneducated.

– Many were immigrants.

• Business owners wanted to maximize their profits. – Resulted in low wages, long hours, and unsafe working conditions for workers

Reform, Urbanization, and Industrialization

• In the 1820s, workers began to organize into groups to demand higher wages, shorter hours, and safer working conditions.

• Labor movement: efforts by workers to improve their situation • Skilled workers, such as carpenters and masons, formed organizations to regulate their pay.

• In 1834 several smaller groups united to form the National Trades Union in New York City.

• The labor movement faced fierce opposition from business owners and many government officials.

Reform, Urbanization, and Industrialization

• The Ten-Hour Movement: a labor reform campaign to limit the working day to 10 hours from the more common 12 hours or more • By 1840, all federal employees received a 10-hour workday.

• In the mid-1840s, New Hampshire became the first state to limit the workday to 10 hours. Other states followed New Hampshire’s example.

• Despite this success, laborers remained very much at the whim of business owners. It would be decades before they made substantial progress in improving their work conditions.

• Many people were not happy about immigration •

Nativism

: an extreme dislike for immigrants by native born people and a desire to limit immigration • Nativists disliked: • Irish, Asians, Jews and Eastern Europeans

Section 3

Reforming Society

Prison Reform

• Alexis de Tocqueville visited

America to observe the prison system

• He was dismayed at the amount

of abuse

Prison Reform

• Dorthea Dix was horrified to see

mentally ill and handicapped people in prisons alongside violent criminals.

• She led the drive to build

separate facilities for mentally ill people

Children in the Jails

• Josiah Quincy (I think grandson of Quincy that defended the British soldiers at the Boston Massacre ) wanted to separate the sentencing for adults and children • The children should receive less time for the crimes and work more on rehabilitation • Rehabilitation worked on preparing the individual for life outside the jail with education and job skills

Common – School movement

• Horace Mann

pushed for free and compulsory education for all children.

• He helped establish tax

supported schools, a longer school year and teacher training

School Reform

• McGuffy Readers were used to

teach children to read

• They combined phonics with

stories encouraging hard work, punctuality and sobriety.

School Reform

• Catherine Beecher

sought to create teachers from spinster women

• Schools also

responsible for raising children

School Reform

Secondary School Enrollment 1840-1860

Temperance

• The beverages of choice

in the 1800s were beer and whiskey

• With the new machinery of the

Industrial Revolution, men were getting injured and even killed

• Reformers blamed alcohol on the

breakup of families and poverty

Temperance

• Women led the

temperance movement.

• Temperance societies

sprung up throughout the country

• They were so successful

that alcohol consumption dropped by 50%

Temperance

• American Temperance Society and the American Temperance Union helped spread the message • “Alcohol corrupted society”

Education for Women

• Sara Grimke ran one of several

schools open for women

• Emma Willard started the first

college for women

• Oberlin College opened their doors

to women

• Elizabeth Blackwell became

America’s first female doctor

Education for Women

• Catherine

Beecher(daughter of Lyman Beecher) took a survey on women’s health and found that 3 of every 4 th woman was ill since they rarely bathed or exercised.

• She started a school

for all girls

• Before 1820s most

girls only attended elementary school

Education for people with Disabilties

• Samuel Howe worked to provide a way for those with visual disabilities to receive an education • Thomas Gallaudet studied to provide those with hearing impairments an education

Section 4

The movement to End Slavery

Abolitionists

• By the 1820s some people

began to openly question the morality of slavery

• Others wanted violent

uprisings

What to do with free slaves?

• Some proposed that all Blacks be

sent “back” to Africa Robert Finley started the American Coloniation Society

• This society founded Liberia on

the west coast of Africa and approximately 12,000 African Americans relocated there

Abolitionists

• Charles Finney preached about

the evils of slavery

• Most whites in the north gave

slavery no attention at all

• Some, particularly the Irish,

wanted slavery to continue

Abolitionists

• William Lloyd Garrison -

editor of “The Liberator”

• Wanted slave holders to

release their slaves immediately with no payment for their loss

• He associated with Africans who

promoted violence

• Found the Anti-Slavery Society

Abolitionists

• David Walker – wrote “Appeal to the

Colored Citizens of the World”

• Was completely against the returning

to Africa idea. He argued America was his not Africa and it had been built with the blood and sweat of other black men– why should he leave?

• Thought that slaves that did not

revolt deserved to be enslaved

Abolitionists

• Frederick Douglass -

born a slave and ran away as a child

• Eloquent speaker who talked about

his life as a slave

• Worked with Garrison for a time

but split with him to write “The North Star”

The Underground Railroad, was a vast network of people who helped runaway slaves escape to the Northern United States and into Canada.It was not run by just a single person,but it consisted of many individuals.

Slaves followed the North Star and used songs to pass along information to each other for a safe passing “Follow the Drinking Gourd” was one most used

Most African Americans resisted their enslavement. They used techniques such as work slow-downs, sabotage, sickness, self mutilation, or the destruction of property.To get to their destination point they used the Underground Railroad to transport them.Harriet Tubman was one involved in the Underground Railroad.

The Underground Railroad was neither "under the ground“ or a "railroad system," but was a loose network of aid and assistance to fugitives from captivity. Perhaps as many as 100,000 enslaved Africans may have escaped in the years between The American Revolution and the Civil War

Opposition to Abolition not only in the South

• Many Northerners did not believe in abolition because they thought the freed slaves would take jobs • The debates were so heated in Congress that a Gag Rule was issued to keep it from being discussed in the Legislature • The South argued for the continuance because of their economic needs

This rest of the slides for section 4 are a review from Chapter 14

Thank you for participating

Slavery

• America continued to import

slaves until 1808 (legally)

• Natural birth rate caused the

slave population to soar

• By the mid 1800s,

all slaves were born in America and spoke English ( unless they were illegally traded and many were )

Slavery

• Life

expectancy for slaves in America was much longer than Africans who lived in Africa

• THIS CHART DOES NOT

SUPPORT THIS INFO)

Slavery

• Men, women and

children worked from sun up to sun down.

• Slave marriages were

not considered “legal under the eyes of God” so families could be sold apart.

Slavery

• Immigrant labor did

not come to the south so many slaves learned skills

• Some hired

themselves out for pay

Slavery

• All slaves,

regardless of age, worked

• This little boy was

a ‘companion’ for the daughter of his owner.

Urban and Rural Slavery

• Slaves in the cotton fields worked

all day in the hot sun, ate substandard food, lived in wooden shacks and were beaten for minor infractions.

• Slaves in larger towns worked for

pay which was shared with their owner. They did not have an overseer.

Slave Uprisings

• Nat Turner

uprising leading to the death of 55 whites. – 1831, led an

• The retaliation led to the deaths

of hundreds of slaves and strengthening the slave codes

Slave Codes

• Regions and counties made laws for

slaves only to make certain that slaves stay under the control of whites

• After uprisings, codes became

stricter, some not allowing more than 2 slaves to gather

Slave Codes

• Most states made it illegal to teach

slaves how to read and write or learn a trade.

• They could not travel without

papers.

• Even then, there was a chance that

they would be kidnapped and sold to another owner

Pro-Slavery Advocates

• Southerners defended slavery by – The Bible – “Slaves should obey

their masters…”

– Slaves were learning about Jesus

and away from the ‘savages’ in Africa

– Slaves were ‘happy’ doing menial

labor

Economics of Slavery

• The cost of a prime field hand was

about $1,500 - $2,000

• It cost about $20 each year to

care for a slave

• The care was necessary from birth

to death, 60-70 years, and during non-growing seasons

Section 5

Women’s Rights

Cult of Domesticity

• Women’s roles changed in the

early to mid 1800s but they were still treated like property

• Some women began protesting for

equality for women and slaves

Cult of Domesticity

• Women were ‘housewives’ once

they got married

• There jobs included cooking,

cleaning, tending to the children, and household food

• These are the women who were

impacted by the Second Great Awakening

Cult of Domesticity

• Women in the 1830s had more

free time than their mothers since they could hire immigrants to help with domestic chores

• They joined the causes of

abolitionism and temperance, and eventually, feminism

Sarah and Angelina Grimke

• Daughters of southern slaveholders,

the Grimke movement sisters became avid spokesmen for the anti-slavery

• In 1833, Sarah wrote “Letters on the

Equality of the Sexes and the condition of Women”

• Angelina wrote “An Appeal to Christian

Women of the South” urging them to rid the country of slavery

Seneca Falls Convention

• Sojourner Truth,

Isabella Baumfree as a slave abolitionism , spoke about her life

• She was booed and

hissed at because the women did not want feminism to get lost while promoting

Seneca Falls Convention

• In 1848

Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott held a convention for women’s rights

• They declared that

women were entitled to the same rights and equality as men

Seneca Falls Convention

The organizers wrote the Declaration of Sentiments which detailed the injustice that was occurring throughout this country toward women.

Continued fight for equal rights

• Lucy Stone and Susan B. Anthony took up the fight to provide women with equality • Anthony argued for not only political rights but also wanted equal pay for an equal job • She also fought to allow women into predominantly male roles • In 1860, because of her work and persistence, New York finally gave women ownership of her wages and property