Religion and Reform

1. Religion and Reform • In the early 1800’s a new Protestant religious movement began in New England, it became known as the Second Great Awakening • Within a few years it had reached Kentucky and frontier America • The “camp meetings often lasted a week or more and the sermons asked sinners to be “saved” to create a better society • The meetings provided a social outlet to isolated people on the frontier

2. Results of the Second Great Awakening • Affected many areas of American life from prison reform, the women’s movement and abolition of slavery • Converted souls, reorganized churches and spawned numerous new sects • More people became members of Protestant churches- 20% in 1800, 50% in 1840 • The Methodist and Baptist Churches grew in the south • The African Methodist-Episcopal Church was founded in Philadelphia • The Mormon Church and the Utopian movements began

3. The Mormon Church • The Mormon Church was organized in 1830 in upstate New York- in a very short time it attracted many followers and negative attention because of their beliefs • The Mormon community eventually settled Nauvoo, Illinois. • They were prosperous, owned land and had political power. • Social demands and religious beliefs led to the arrest of their leader and founder Joseph Smith, who was killed by a mob outside of jail • The new Mormon leader Brigham Young led the group to the Great Salt Lake

4. The Mormon Church

5. Mormons in Utah • Brigham Young led them to a desolate desert where the Mormons thrived • Young was the political and theocratic authority • The built irrigation systems and their settlements were located near the Oregon Trail and other routes west • They called their land Desert • Deseret became United States territory in 1850 • Many Americans saw the Mormons as un- American because of their practice of bloc-voting and polygamy • The United States government and the Mormons struggled over control of the territory until 1857 • Under the threat of the United States military they gave in to federal control and outlawed polygamy and other religious practices

6. Utopian Communities • These were communities that promised equality for all members • Many of these communities were in rural, isolated areas • Many were based on religious ideas and principles • The members typically worked common land and property • Many Utopian communities produced crafts such as plates, chairs, etc. • Many quickly ran into futility and failed because after the founder passed away each idealist had their own vision

9. Reform Movements Prisons, Mental Health, Temperance, Education, Women’s Movement and Abolition and the Romantic Movement

10. Reform Movements pages 42-52 • “What is man born for, but to be a reformer, a remaker of what man has made?” Ralph Waldo Emerson • The urge to reform America and eradicate evil had its roots in the religious movements of the early 1800’s and was based in the beliefs of individuality and the perfectibility of man.

11. Prison and Mental Health Reform • Prison in America in the early 1800’s were places where criminals and the mentally ill were housed together. Punishment and discipline were severe • The optimism of reform led to the belief that people were basically good and capable of improvement, this brought change to the way prisoners and the mentally ill were treated • Dorthea Dix was a prison reformer that traveled across the country to encourage states to build humane prisons and mental health institutions . Her efforts led to the creation of the earliest mental health hospitals

12. Education Reform • Literacy was widespread in early but there were few state supported schools • In the south and the frontier the rural population did not allow for development of schools • Many began to support tax supported public schools • would provide the decision making tools for members of a democracy and provide educated workers for the growing economy • Horace Mann was an early leader in the establishment of public schools, standardized education and the need for trained teachers • Within a few decades public schools were wide spread across the north and the percentage of children attending school doubled. The south and west embraced this movement after the Civil War

13. Temperance Movement • Many reformers viewed alcohol as the reason for social ills • There was a tradition in America of people drinking and working. • In the emerging industrial economy drinking was a problem more than it had been in the simple economy before this time • Factories were dangerous places • Alcohol was blamed for poverty, crime, sickness and abuse. • The American Temperance Society was formed in the 1830’s where they urged people to refrain from drinking alcohol • This movement met with limited success

15. Women’s Movement • Women took an active role in the social movements of the early 1800’s • Many women began to enter the workplace as industrialization spread across the northeast. Many left home and gained social and economic independence • Working women had more time to think about the society and many women became involved in the abolitionist movement and they began to their restrictions as comparable to slavery

16. Fight for Equality • Reformers began to publish ideas in books and pamphlets. Angela Grimke wrote that “God made men and women equal” and they should be treated equally • Two leading abolitionist women were also leaders in the women’s rights movement- Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucrectia Mott • organized a the nation’s first Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York • The convention attracted hundreds of men and women • The delegates to the convention adopted the Declaration of Sentiments that was modeled after the Declaration of Independence • Called for greater independence for greater social and economic opportunity for women • The convention did not lead to immediate improvement for women but it was the beginning of the women’s rights movement • The Seneca Falls Convention inspired leaders like Susan B. Anthony to fight for women's rights and suffrage.

17. Growth of Slavery • In the first half of the 1800s slavery expanded for the following reasons: • The invention of the cotton gin which allowed for the planting and harvesting of larger quantities of cotton • The demand for cotton from the textile mills in both England and New England •  The availability of large quantities of land in the Southeast to enable cotton's expansion.  • The removal of Indians from the Southeast allowing the expansion of cotton plantations

18. Cotton and Slaves

19. Abolitionist Movement • Many Americans disagreed with slavery yet few spoke out against it before 1830 • There were early efforts to send freed slaves to Africa and money was raised to build a colony there- this became the future country of Liberia • In 1804 slavery was banned in most states north of Maryland and in 1807 bringing new slaves to America was outlawed • Slavery was an established part of the economic system in the south, especially with the growth of cotton farming in the early 1800’s

20. Abolition Movement • With the growth of the United States and new territory opened up for statehood the slavery question became a political one. • Many people thought slavery would die out gradually through industrialization • The Second Great Awakening provided a moral ground to stand against slavery, and the gradualism turned into an abolition movement

21. Slave Life • Slaves endure hardship- hard labor, brutal beatings, inadequate food and shelter. Slave families were occasionally split up. • Many showed remarkable spirit reflected in religious worship and family ties • Some slaves fought against their oppressors and slave rebellions occasionally occurred. • Terrified by the idea of a successful slave revolt passed harsh laws to prevent them. • Gatherings of slaves, teaching them to read were some of the laws passed • The Underground Railroad was a loosely organized network to help slaves to escape to freedom. Harriet Tubman, a freed slave, led hundreds of slaves to freedom.

22. Underground Railroad

23. The Abolition movement begins • A growing number of people were speaking out against slavery • 1831 William Lloyd Garrison began to publish the Liberator a pro- abolition newspaper. • demanded immediate Emancipation for enslaved people and full political and social • Fredrick Douglass, an escaped slave, spoke out against slavery across the United States and England • published an abolitionist newspaper and wrote a book Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass • Thought the political system should be used to end slavery

24. Abolitionist Organizations • Anti slavery groups began to spring up across the Northeast and Midwest during the 1830’s and 1840’s. • They insisted that having slaves was counter to the religious ideals that Americans embraced, viewed it as immoral • Many religious groups supported the abolition movement • Many women were prominent abolitionists

25. Opposition to Abolition • Even though the abolition movement was growing many Americans opposed abolition, in the north and the south • In the north freed slaves faced discrimination and prejudice. • Many northerners feared that African Americans would take their jobs and industrialists feared that without slaves the supply of cotton for the textile mills would be cutoff

26. Opposition to Abolition • In the south there was a defense of slavery- it benefited the textile mills in the north • It was the foundation of the south’s economy • Argued that slavery in the south was better than the “wage slavery” of the north • Argued that Africans were inferior to whites • Some said that slavery freed white men to pursue higher things , like the formation of democracy • These arguments were clearly racist but many people at the time believed them

28. Slavery divides the nation • The abolition movement was small but vocal • Congress was not permitted to debate the issue of slavery (Gag Resolutions) • It caused a divide between the industrial north and the rural, agrarian south • The antislavery groups contested every national election until Lincoln won in 1860

29. Transcendentalism and Romanticism • The movement began as a response to Enlightenment thinkers that the world was a well ordered place- everything could be solved with logic and reason • Romanticism expressed moods, impressions, feelings • Americans easily accepted these ideas. They put an emphasis on the individual and the virtues of the common man. • Transcendentalism meant that some things were beyond reason- fundamental truth came from experience

30. Romanticism in Art and Literature • Romantic art emphasized nature- it depicted wild landscapes, mist and sunlight. Man looked small in the paintings • Romantic Literature- criticism of the past, heroic isolation of the narrator or main character, respect for wild untamed nature, writings based on the supernatural

31. Transcendentalism • Ralph Waldo Emerson,. Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman were the leading authors and thinkers of this movement • Their writings reflected self- sufficiency. • Thoreau lived in a cabin on Walden Pond for one year as an experiment in self sufficiency and to prove that a person could free himself from the trappings of commercialism and industrialism • Thoreau refused to pay a poll tax during the Mexican War as a statement of opposition because he thought the war supported slavery • Thoreau wrote an essay called Civil Disobedience that promoted ideas of nonviolence • Influenced Gandhi, and civil rights activists of the 1960’s. • Thoreau saw civil disobedience as the right of individuals to refuse to obey laws they feel are unjust