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United States History Chapter 15. The Spirit of Reform 1820-1860. American Literature and Art. Early America used the art and literature that they brought with them from other countries. Soon, though America began developing her own themes and voice in literature and art.
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United States HistoryChapter 15 The Spirit of Reform 1820-1860
American Literature and Art • Early America used the art and literature that they brought with them from other countries. • Soon, though America began developing her own themes and voice in literature and art. • Famous American Writers: • Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, James Fenimore Cooper, Herman Melville, Edger Allen Poe
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1832) In “Self-Reliance,” Emerson defined American transcendentalism by saying the individual should be completely reliant on God, and that every person has been put into their certain life and position by God … He said that God has put the power to handle things, think, and act into each individual and that the individual needs to trust what God has put inside them to do things with their lives.
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) American author, naturalist, transcendentalist, pacifist, philosopher who is most famous for his written account, Walden, a reflection upon simple living amongst nature, and his essay, Civil Disobedience, an argument for individual resistance to civic government as moral opposition to an unjust law. This essay has had a wide influence on many later practitioners of civil disobedience. In the essay, Thoreau explained his reasons for having refused to pay taxes as an act of protest against slavery and against the Mexican-American War
Brook Farm, Massachusetts The transcendentalists sought harmony, the merging of values, ideas, and spiritual matters with physical events, the union of mind and body, spirit and flesh. At Brook Farm, and in other communities, physical labor is perceived as a condition of mental well-being and health. They believed that manual labor was uplifting, and thus, every member, even the writers and poets, spent at least a few hours a day in physical effort. Another expression of the connection of flesh and spirit is manifested through the abundance of physical tasks performed at Brook Farm. The members of Brook Farm believed that they could create a micro utopia of society that would eventually serve as a model of social macrocosm.
James Fenimore Cooper- The Last of the Mohicans - The story is set in the British province of New York during the French and Indian War, and concerns a massacre of a colonial garrison and a fictional kidnapping of two sisters, who were the daughters of the commander. Hawkeye and his Mohican companions escort sisters, Cora and Alice, through the woods of New York to Fort William Henry. They engage in deadly fights along the way against Hurons.
Herman Melville’s Moby Dick Moby-Dickdescribes the ill-fated voyage ofthe whaling ship Pequod to find and destroy the white whale, driven by the obsessive Captain Ahab. The language is highly symbolic and many themes run throughout the work. The narrator's reflections, along with complex descriptions of the grueling work of whaling and personalities of his shipmates, are woven into a profound meditation on providence, nature, society, and the human struggle.
Nathanial HawthorneThe ScarletLetter (1850) Hester Prynne’s husband was presumed to have been lost at sea. She begins a secret adulterous relationship with the town preacher and becomes pregnant. She is forced to wear the scarlet letter "A" on her clothing to identify her as an adulteress, but her loyalty refuses to reveal the identity of her lover. She accepts the punishment with grace and refuses to be defeated by the shame inflicted upon her by her society. Her virtue becomes increasingly evident to the reader, while the community vilify her, and are shown in varying states of moral decay.
Washington IrvingRip Van Winkle The story is set in the years before and after the American Revolutionary War. Rip Van Winkle escapes his nagging wife by wandering up the Catskill Mountains near his home town in New York. He settles down under a shady tree and falls asleep. He wakes up 20 years later and returns to his village. He finds out that his wife is dead and his close friends have died. He immediately gets into trouble when he hails himself a loyal subject of George III, not knowing that in the meantime the American Revolution has taken place.
Edger Allen PoeFall of the House of Usher (1838) The tale opens with the narrator having arrived at the house of his friend, Roderick Usher. Usher complained of an illness and asked for his comfort. Usher informs the narrator that his sister has died and insists that she is entombed in the house. After two weeks Usher admits that strange sounds are being made by his sister, who was in fact alive when she was put in the vault. Madeline escapes, appears, falling on her brother and they both die. The narrator quickly escapes from the house, and as he hurries away, he sees the house sink into the bog.
Notable American Scientists • Science advanced during this time period • Using the Scientific Method, men and women began to study creation and discover more deeply how things worked. • Medicine, astronomy, physics, physical sciences and geology all took leaps forward.
Maria Mitchell • Taught herself astronomy and found a comet in 1847
Joseph Henry • Invented an electromagnetic motor that helped predict weather
Matthew Maury Developed a way to predict winds and ocean tides
Dr. Crawford Long & Dr. William Morton • Developed a way to use ether as an anesthetic (numbing solution)
Early Education in the U.S. • In the 1830’s reformers began demanding better schools • Common School Movement – Led by Horace Mann,wanted to raise the standards of schools across the country and pay for them through taxes. • Most people didn’t pay any taxes in the 1830’s and they didn’t support paying a school tax
Minorities Education • Women only received a basic education if any (they were taught morals & manners) • African Americans were generally not allowed any education (some exceptions existed on the lower levels) • Hearing & Visually Impaired were also not educated prior to the early 1800’s • 1817 the first school for the hearing impaired opened, and in 1831 the first school for the blind opened.
Prison Reform • In the early 1800’s many wanted to reform prisons. • Focus turned from punishing to reforming prisoners. • Most reform came through work and bible study.
Mentally Ill • Dorothea Dix studied the New England prison systems for two years. • She investigated hundreds of facilities. • Her greatest achievement was convincing many states to open hospitals for the mentally ill, and stop treating them as criminals.
Temperance Movement • In the early 1800’s many saw alcoholism as a primary reason for higher crime rates, poverty, and abuse. • The temperance movement was a campaign against drinking alcohol. • The movement called for the prohibition, or banning, of alcohol all together. • Southerners really pushed for prohibition • 1851 Maine banned the manufacture and sale of alcohol, several other states followed.
Second Great Awakening • This was a time period were people wanted to renew religious faith and cure the evils of society. • Religious groups and revival meetings increased, and thousands of new churches were created. • Charles Finney was influential as a “circuit preacher” (or traveling preacher). • This era saw the birth of “Dispensational Theology”.
Second Great Awakening (con.) • Many different denominations and sects began during this time as a split emerged from Christian orthodoxy. • Examples of groups: Mormons, Shakers, Campbellites, Seventh-day Adventist, The Oneida Community. • Communal groups or communal living became a popular idea from some groups in attempt to create a “utopia” here on Earth.
Robert Owens's New Harmony Indiana Wilderness Utopia
Antislavery Movement • By 1840 nearly 2.5 million slaves were in the south. • South depended on slave labor. • Northern states abolished slavery by 1804 and slaves tried to escape to the north. • Antislavery movement began with the Quakers in 1775 • By 1792 antislavery groups were popping up all over the U.S. • American Colonization Society was established in 1817. • Created a colony for free blacks in West Africa called Liberia • Most free blacks didn’t want to leave the U.S. and felt like this was an attempt to remove free blacks and their resistance to slavery from the U.S.
Abolitionists • Abolitionists were people who wanted to end slavery • They demanded the immediate emancipation, or freeing, of slaves. • Abolitionists created the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1835. • There were many famous abolitionists: • William Lloyd Garrison, Angelina & Sarah Gimke, Elijah Lovejoy, Horace Greeley, Wendell Phillips, & Sojourner Truth • Most famous was Frederick Douglas • A former slave that escaped in 1838 and began writing and preaching about the brutality of slavery.
The masthead of William Lloyd Garrison's anti-slavery newspaper was as uncompromising as the editor himself. "I come to break the bonds of the oppressor," it proclaimed, with Jesus as the figurehead. Abolitionists liked to portray the free north as heaven and the slave owning south as hell, but the comparison made tempers flare on both sides.
