UNIT 3 NOTES: THE REFORM ERA

1. UNIT 3 NOTES: THE REFORM ERA

2. EDUCATION REFORM

3. EARLY SCHOOLS • Early Characteristics • One room, one stove, one teacher • Up to grade 8 • Stayed open only a few months a year • Blacks in the South were legally forbidden to receive instruction in reading and writing • School teachers were ill-trained, ill-tempered, ill-paid men • Often put more stress on “lickin” of discipline then “larnin” • Taught the 3 R’s • Readin’, ritin’, and rithmetic • Reform was desperately needed • Whigs were reformers who created the most advanced, expensive, centralized state school systems • Talked more about schools teaching character development • It was school’s first duty to teach youngsters to respect authority, property, hard work, and social order • Schools would downplay class divisions, democratize the wealthy, civilize the poor

4. TAX SUPPORTED EDUCATION • Tax supported schools were scarce in the early years of the republic • They existed chiefly to educate the children of the poor – the so-called ragged schools • In mid-1800s local and state governments built tax supported public school systems known as “common schools” • Before this time children learned reading, writing, and arithmetic at home, in poor local schools, private schools, or church sponsored schools • By 1830 Whigs and democrats agreed the providing common schools was a proper function of government • Both agreed that schools could equalize opportunity for both rich and poor • Well-to-do conservatives realized that if they did not pay to educate other “brats”, those brats would grow up armed with voting power

5. McGuffy Readers • In 1833, a small publishing company called Truman and Smith based in Cincinnati, Ohio, became interested in the idea of school texts. • They happened upon Rev. William Holmes McGuffey. • This first reader of 1841 introduces children to McGuffey's ethical code. • The child modeled in this book is prompt, good, kind, honest and truthful. • The second reader followed the same pattern. • It contained reading and spelling with eighty-five lessons, sixteen pictures and one-hundred sixty-six pages. • It outlined history, biology, astronomy, zoology, botany; table manners, behavior towards family, attitudes toward God and teachers, the poor • Millions of pioneer men and women were schooled with these texts

6. REFORM LEADERS • Horace Mann (1796 – 1859) • Graduated from Brown University • As Secretary of Mass. Board of Education he campaigned for better schoolhouses, higher pay for teachers, expanded curriculum • Noah Webster (1758 – 1843) • Yale educated • Known as “Schoolmaster of the Republic” • His reading lessons were used by millions of children in the 1800’s • Lessons often designed to promote patriotism • Devoted 20 years to his dictionary (1828) which helped standardize the American language

7. The movement for women’s rights

8. The Movement for Women’s Rights • Main Idea: Although women were expected to devote their time to home and family in the 1800s, some women organized the women’s rights movement in the 1840s

9. Limits for Women • Industrialization had a large impact on women’s roles • Women in more comfortable households were freed from chores such as growing their own food and making clothes • The Industrial period made it so more timesaving products were available • With this free time, most believed women should remain in the home • The ideal of the stay-at-home woman that was expected to raise the children, entertain guests, and serve their husbands was called the Cult of True Domesticity (or True Womanhood) • Women could not vote, could not own property, and most had to turn wages over to a husband or father

10. Reform at Home • Many women were not lobbying for political rights, they instead advised women to reform society from within their roles in the home • Catherine Beecher tried to win respect for women’s contributions as wives, mother’s, and teachers • She lobbied for the education of women • Felt that women were the moral background of the country

11. Women in Reform • As more women became educated, they grew eager to apply their knowledge beyond the home • Women played a prominent role in every type of reform, from temperance to abolition • They marched in parades, participated in boycotts, and even gave speeches

12. A Women’s Rights Movement • Lucretia Mott • B. 1793 • Teacher • Became a Quaker minister • Was also an abolitionist • Elizabeth Cady Stanton • Daughter of a Congressman • Studied law • Married an abolitionist lawyer • Both were angered when they were not allowed to participate in the 1840 World Anti-Slavery Convention in London

13. Seneca Falls Convention • Took place in Seneca Falls, NY • July 1848 • First women’s rights convention in U.S. history • Created a document titled the “Declaration of Sentiments” • In the spirit of the Declaration of Independence • Passed 12 resolutions signed by 68 women and 32 men • Resolutions protested lack of political rights for women • The 9th resolution called for women’s suffrage

14. Effects • The convention did not trigger wide spread change • Many shared Catharine Beecher’s view of women’s influence being through the home • Yet it did mark the beginning of an organized movement for women’s rights • Impact on Education: No college admitted women in 1820 – thousands were graduating from colleges in 1890

15. People to Know • Sojourner Truth • Catharine Beecher • LucrettiaMott • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

16. Sojourner Truth • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsjdLL3MrKk • 1851 Speech by abolitionist, women’s rights activist, poet, and writer – Sojourner Truth

17. The TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT

18. The temperance movement • The first and most widespread reform was the temperance movement • This was an organized campaign to eliminate alcohol consumption • In the early 1800s America consumed more alcoholic beverages per person than at any other time in our nation’s history • Reformers opposed drinking because it tended to make people lose control and was viewed as a threat to family life

19. PROBLEMS WITH ALCOHOL • Central to the party formation in the north were the evangelical Whigs who demanded that government regulate public social behavior • Central to this fight was the issue of alcohol • drinking had been a part of American life since colonial times • withering authority and the market revolution had led to increased public drunkenness and a perceived increase in alcohol led violence and social problems • Heavy drinking decreased efficiency of labor • It also fouled the sanctity of family and threatened spiritual welfare

20. GOALS • Two plans of attack: • Stiffen individual will to resist alcohol • Eliminate alcohol by law • By encouraging total abstinence, reformers hoped to halt the creation of a wave of new drunkards • While abstinence relies on self discipline the hope was to fade alcohol out through social pressure and expectations • Many churches made temperance a condition of religious conversion or jobs as a condition of employment

21. REORMERS • Lyman Beecher • Temperance core beliefs were based on writings from Lyman Beecher’s Six Sermons on the Nature, Occasions, Signs, Evils, and Remedy of Intemperance (1826) • Beecher declared alcohol an addictive drug • T.S. Arthur • Novel: Ten Nights in a Barroom and What I Saw There (1854) • Described a once happy village ruined by Sam Slade’s tavern • American Temperance Society • The temperance crusade began in 1826 when northeastern evangelicals founded the American Society for the Promotion of Temperance, or American Temperance Society • They implored drinkers to sign temperance pledges, handed out brochures and pamphlets, and lectures • Between 1815 and 1840 thousands of temperance societies formed • Members urged people to take pledges not to drink alcohol

22. Efforts against alcohol • In the mid 1830s Whigs made temperance a political issue • They realized voluntary abstinence would not put an end to drunkenness • They first attacked licenses granting establishments rights to sell it • The goal was to outlaw all public drinking places • Neal Dow of Main “Father of Prohibition” • sponsored the Main Law of 1851 which banned the sale of alcohol • This attempt proved feeble as taverns would operate anyways or would find ways around laws • 1838 Massachusetts Fifteen Gallon Law • Democrats agreed that Americans drank too much, they warned that government intrusion into areas of private choice violated republican liberties • Eventually prohibition laws were abolished • The temperance movement did have a significant effect: • Between 1830 and 1860 alcohol consumption in the U.S. dropped dramatically

23. The anti-slavery movement

24. The abolitionist movement • Another social movement began to gain momentum: abolition • The abolitionist movement was an effort to end slavery • Even during colonial times there were people outspoken against slavery but it in the early 1800s it became widespread • At first, most anti-slavery approaches were moderate • Quaker Ben Lundy proposed gradual emancipation in 1821 • Emancipation is the freeing of slaves • He favored stopping slavery from being used in new states • Wanted to end slave trade in the U.S. as a gradual step • By the end of the 1820s, free African-Americans had created over 50 anti-slavery groups

25. American colonization society • Some abolitionists favored colonization • Many were convinced that African Americans would never receive equal treatment in American society • Colonization favored a plan to send emancipated slaves and free African Americans to form new societies in Africa • The American Colonization Society formed in 1817 • They established the west African country of Liberia for this purpose • This plan offended many African Americans as they considered themselves Americans and did not want to be sent to a far away country

26. William lloyd garrison • Famous, radical abolitionist • White Bostonian • In 1831 he began publishing an anti-slavery newspaper, The Liberator

27. Frederick Douglass • One of the most popular and influential speaker in the anti-slavery movement was Frederick Douglass • He was an accomplished writer, publisher, and speaker • He was the son of a white father and slave mother • He was raised by his grandmother and at age 8 was sent to Baltimore to be a house slave • His owners ignored common law at the time and educated him • At age 17 he was considered unruly and was sent to a “slave breaker” to become cooperative • He later defended himself against the breaker and later said it was the story of “how a man became a slave and a slave became a man” • In 1838, at age 21 he disguised himself as a sailor and escaped to Massachusetts • After rousing speeches he soon became leader of the American Anti-Slavery Society • He started an abolitionists newspaper called the North Star • Throughout his life he became a important influence in the abolitionist movement

28. Frederick Douglass • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7j0jvj4e4XU&feature=relmfu

29. Divisions among abolitionists • While abolitionists shared a common goal, they had different tactics to achieve those goals • These different ideas cause divisions in the movement • Women’s Participation • Many Americans did not approve of women’s involvement in politics • Race • Many African Americans felt that white abolitionists treated them as inferior • Tactics • Some insisted on only legal methods • Many believed legal methods were too long-term

30. The underground railroad • With tremendous human suffering, many would not wait for long-term strategies to work • Risking arrest and their lives, abolitionists created the Underground Railroad • This was a network of escape routes that provided protection for slaves escaping to the north • Historians disagree on the number, but somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000 slaves escaped on these routes • They traveled along rivers routes, through eastern swamps, along mountain passes

31. Resistance to abolition • These abolition movements provoked intense opposition in the North and South • Most white Americans viewed abolition as a radical idea • Northern merchants worried that the anti-slavery movement would hurt business from southern customers • White workers feared that freed slaves would take their jobs by working for lower wages • Even though many thought slavery was wrong, most northerners felt African Americans were socially inferior and did not want them living in their communities • These movements made southerners even more determined to defend slavery • In 1830s it became dangerous for a southerner to speak out against slavery • Southern postmasters refused to deliver literature about abolition • Southern Congressmen succeeded in passing what many called a Gag Rule • It prohibited anti-slavery petitions from being read or acted upon in the House for 8 years

32. FEMALE ABOLITIONISTS • Harriet Tubman • Sojourner Truth

33. Harriet Tubman • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bdno2YLm4Ms