I. Individualism: The Ethic of the Middle Class

I. Individualism: The Ethic of the Middle Class A. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Transcendentalism • Transcendentalism • Intellectual movement rooted in Unitarianism (God is single being • Rejected Enlightenment idea-celebration of human passions and mysteries, individuality • Emerson-moved to Concord, MA, resigned from a ministerial position in Boston • people trapped by traditions • ideal setting for transcendent discovery was under an open sky, in solitary communion with nature; work was destroying spiritual lives.

2. The lyceum movement • Beginning in 1826, the movement was a way to reach people through public lectures, discussions • modeled after Aristotle’s public lectures in ancient Greece • Attractive to the middle class in the North and the Midwest, not the South; Massachusetts had more than 150 lyceums in 1839 • Emerson was the most popular speaker.

I. Individualism: The Ethic of the Middle Class B. Emerson’s Literary Influence • Thoreau, Fuller, and Whitman • Henry David Thoreau: built cabin at Walden Pond after his brother’s death, lived there for 2 years alone, and published Walden, or Life in the Woods about his search for meaning in the natural world • Margaret Fuller: explored freedom for women, edited The Dial (transcendentalist journal) and published Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1844); men and women were capable of a relationship with God; women deserved independence; literary critic for New York Tribune • WaltWhitman: printer, teacher, journalist, and newspaper editor; published Leaves of Grass (1855) as a collection of poetry celebrating the desire to break from tradition.

2. Darker Visions • Nathaniel Hawthorne: pessimistic worldview, published The Scarlet Letter (1850) criticizing excessive individualism • Herman Melville: critic of transcendentalist focus on the individual, published Moby Dick (1851) in which a personal quest brings death.

II. Rural Communalism and Urban Popular Culture A. The Utopian Impulse • Mother Ann and the Shakers • 1774, Lee Ann Stanley (Mother Ann) founded the Shakers-1st successful American communal movement • 1770, vision of herself as Christ on earth • believed sexual lust had been the downfall of Adam and Eve • known as “Shakers” for dancing during service • Mother Ann died in 1784 • 20 more communities in New England, New York, and Ohio to celebrate her. • Increased numbers through orphans, adoptions • by 1900, they virtually disappeared, leaving their legacy of simple and beautiful furniture.

2. Albert Brisbane and Fourierism • Charles Fourier predicted imminent decline of individual property rights and capitalist values, Brisbane was leading disciple • Fourierist socialism would liberate workers from capitalist employers • Phalanxes (members of the community) would own property in common, liberation of women as well as men. • 1840s, Fourierists founded one hundred cooperative communities in western New York and the Midwest; collapsed over conflicts about work responsibilities and social policies, no utopian societies without great leaders or religious visions

II. Rural Communalism and Urban Popular Culture A. The Utopian Impulse (cont.) 3. John Humphrey Noyes and Oneida • Noyes was both charismatic and religious • No marriage (major barrier to sinless perfection on earth, “complex marriage” in which all members of community are married to one another • Rejected monogamy to free women from their status as husbands’ property; female followers cut their hair short and wore pantaloons • 1848, Noyes founded community near Oneida, New York • manipulated the sexual lives of his followers. • mid-1850s, two hundred residents and used profits from steel animal trap manufacturing to diversify into silverware production • Noyes fled to Canada to avoid prosecution for adultery; community abandoned complex marriage but retained its cooperative spirit.

II. Rural Communalism and Urban Popular Culture B. Joseph Smith and the Mormon Experience • Joseph Smith • Raised in central New York (1805–1844) • believed that he had been chosen to receive a revelation • published The Book of Mormon (1830) telling the story of an ancient civilization that migrated to the West and was visited by Jesus Christ after the Resurrection • encouraged patriarchal authority, frugality, hard work, a church-directed society, moral perfection • struggled to find a home for his church where it would not face harassment • eventually settled in Illinois • argued that a revelation to him had justified polygamy • charged with treason in 1844 when it was believed he was conspiring to build a community in Mexico; murdered in jail along with his brother.

2. Brigham Young and Utah • Led Smith’s disciples • about 6,500 Mormons fled the U.S. for Mexico after his death • eventually settled in the Great Salt Lake Valley • created a planned agricultural community • named Young as governor when Utah became part of the U.S. in 1850 • led to a short “Mormon War” over the issue of polygamy and possible nullification • those who accepted federal authority would not be prosecuted for polygamy (banned finally in 1896).

II. Rural Communalism and Urban Popular Culture C. Urban Popular Culture • Sex in the City • Population causes new culture in cities, left rural areas and life in cities was difficult • Low wages in factories (MEN), Women worked in domestics, high rates of Quid Pro Quo (sexual exploitation), prostitution • Married Men have mistresses, brothels • sexual identity was experimented with in the cities without parents having control over young peoples’ daily lives.

2. Minstrelsy 2. Minstrelsy • Rat and terrier fights in traditional theaters • Minstrel shows in which white actors performed in blackface • historians have labeled these shows both racist caricature and social criticism • began around 1830; John Dartmouth Rice’s character “Jim Crow” was famous in New York City • minstrels also stereotyped Irish immigrants’ drinking of alcohol, and made fun of women’s rights activists and elite white men.

3. Immigrant Masses and Nativist Reaction • Immigrants wanted to be viewed as “white” • Irish joined American Catholic Churches and became part of the Democratic Party • nativists wanted to stop immigration • Gangs formed in New York City, and violence erupted between immigrant groups and native-born white Americans.

III. Abolitionism A. Black Social Thought: Uplift, Race Equality, and Rebellion • David Walker’s Appeal • Northern free blacks-social uplift, white mobs attacked blacks in northern cities • Walker’s writing was in response to attacks. Walker was a free black from North Carolina who had moved to Boston, self-educated, ridiculed religious arguments of slaveholders, justified slave rebellion, and warned of a slave revolt if blacks were denied justice much longer. • 1830, called a national convention of free black leaders in Philadelphia, group demanded freedom and “race equality” but refused to endorse Walker’s radical call for revolt or the traditional program of black uplift.

2. Nat Turner’s Revolt • Turner, a slave in Virginia who taught himself to read, was separated from wife by a new master and had a religious vision; in August 1831, led a revolt with relatives and friends; killed 55 whites; he was eventually caught and hanged. The Virginia assembly increased slave codes, prohibited anyone from teaching slaves to read, and limited movement of black people in the state.

III. Abolitionism B. Evangelical Abolitionism • William Lloyd Garrison, Theodore Weld, and Angelina and Sarah Grimké • Garrison, a printer in Massachusetts, founded the New England Anti-Slavery Society and published The Liberator, later established American Anti-Slavery Society with Weld and other abolitionists; appealed to religious people • Weld published The Bible Against Slavery (1837) • Grimkésisters were raised in South Carolina, converted to Quakerism, and moved to Pennsylvania; with Weld, the sisters published American Slavery as It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses (1839), which sold more than 100,000 copies that year.

2. The American Anti-Slavery Society • Printed thousands of pamphlets using steam-powered presses • “great postal campaign” (1835) sent more than a million pamphlets • utilized fugitive slaves to tell their stories • established the Underground Railroad to help fugitives • petitioned Congress (1835) to demand abolition in the District of Columbia, end interstate slave trade, and prohibit new slave states.

III. Abolitionism C. Opposition and Internal Conflict • Attacks on Abolitionism • Movement was a minority (about 10 percent of northerners supported) • slaveholders opposed/attacked the movement for political, social, and economic reasons • white men and women almost universally opposed “amalgamation,” racial mixing/intermarriage. • whites in the North attacked churches, temperance halls, homes, and conventions of abolitionists • race solidarity was stronger in the South but existed in the North as well. • In 1836, Congress passed the “gag rule” to keep abolitionists from petitioning; remained in place until 1844.

2. Internal Divisions • Within the movement, activists disagreed • some were critical of women addressing mix-gendered audiences and of Garrison’s support for women’s rights • Garrison’s opponents founded a new organization, the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society.

IV. The Women’s Rights Movement A. Origins of the Women’s Movement • Moral Reform • Religious women wanted to help other women • middle-class women in New York City founded the Female Moral Reform Society to curb prostitution and to protect single women from moral corruption • members visited brothels, prayed, and sang hymns. 2. Improving Prisons, Creating Asylums, Expanding Education • Dorothea Dix (1801–1887) was emotionally abused by an alcoholic father in Massachusetts, save children from vice; published author • 1841, began a campaign to improve care for the mentally ill started asylum-building movement to separate the mentally ill from criminals • women supported school movement of Horace Mann in Massachusetts; recruited well-educated women to be teachers.

IV. The Women’s Rights Movement B. From Black Rights to Women’s Rights • Abolitionist Women • Women were central to antislavery movement • Harriet Jacobs wrote Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl,describing forced sexual relations with her master • Harriet Beecher Stowe in Uncle Tom’s Cabin pinpointed sexual abuse of women as profound moral failing of slavery • African American lecturer Maria Stewart spoke about slavery to mixed audiences first in Boston • Angelia and Sarah Grimké attacked slavery and argued that women have a claim to equal civic rights. • 1840, abolitionist women asserted that traditional gender roles resulted in the domestic slavery of women.

2. Seneca Falls and Beyond • 1840’s, strong reform movement for women’s rights including property ownership, which Mississippi, Maine, Massachusetts, and New York adopted between 1839 and 1845. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott organized Seneca Falls Convention • 70 women and 30 men attended • issued “Declaration of Sentiments” • claim for women in public life and criticized the idea of “separate spheres” (women should remain in the private/home as mothers and wives) • 1851, began an effort to gain voting rights; Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906), a Quaker who argued against women’s dependence on men, led the campaign for voting rights at mid-century.

I. Individualism: The Ethic of the Middle Class