Antebellum Reform Movements

1. Antebellum Reform Movements

2. AP Outline • Unit 6 Creating an American Culture • Cultural nationalism • Education reform/professionalism • Religion; revivalism • Utopian experiments: Mormons, Oneida Community • Transcendentalists • National literature, art, architecture • Reform crusades • Feminism; roles of women in the nineteenth century • Abolitionism • Temperance • Criminals and the insane

3. Key Terms to Know and Memorize

4. Reform=Change for Improvement • Main impulses • Faith in human nature • Goodness of the individual • Desire for order and control • Desire to remake society • Religious/moral impulses • Romanticism • Transcendentalists • Utopian Societies • Second Great Awakening • Temperance Crusade • Feminism • Abolitionism

5. Second Great Awakening • Similar to First Great Awakening: • Recall- Evangelists (Preachers) “Sinners in the hands of and Angry God” • Jonathan Edwards 1741 • Popular • Revival MeetingsCamps • WASPs • New Religious Sects Baptists and Methodists • Revivals increase popularity of reform movements

6. Revivals = “giving new life,” to bring back to life specifically Popular Religion (1830s) • Second Great Awakening • Widespread Christian Movement • Revival meetings= new life • Emotional Sermons • Increased the amount of people participating in churches (particularly women) • Abolition and Temperance movement are directly linked to 2nd Great Awakening • Spread Christian ideas of equality and morality.

7. Romanticism N.I.N.E.S How do the following represent concepts of American Romanticism? • Hudson River School • James Fennimore Cooper • Washington Irving • Walt Whitman • Herman Melville • Edgar Allan Poe • Romanticism • Artistic movement • Emerges 1800-1820 • Message “That would express their nation’s special virtues.” • Discovering American Art as an American creation. • Nostalgic-looking fondly back on earlier times • Inspired by expression of inner spirit • Nature and God together • Work to unleash capacity for good and joy

8. Motifs in Romanticism The Nostalgic (sympathetic fondness) interpretation of the historic PAST Individual REBELLION Subjects from MYTH and FOLKLORE Glorification of NATURE, faraway settings Emotion-SENTIMENTALISM = Nobility of the uncivilized man and simple life Spiritual (GOTHIC themes – supernatural, mysterious)

9. Romanticism in Painting Church • Hudson River School (NY) • First Natural Landscapes • Power of Nature • Sublime (feeling of awe, feeling of wonderment) • Grandeur of Nature • Nature offers promise • Sense of Nostalgia in nature

10. Fredric ChurchThomas ColeThomas DoughtyAsher Durand

11. Romanticism in Literature link • Washington Irving (1809) • Legend of Sleepy Hollow • American theme, Dutch in New York, early America • James Fenimore Cooper (1820s) • Wrote about American wilderness • Leather Stocking Tales • “Last of the Mohicans” • Reflected American Ideals: • Independent Individual • Natural Inner Goodness • Need for order

12. Romanticism in Literature 2 Leaves of Grass Greatest collection “When Lilacs Last in the dooryard bloom’d” Lincoln tribute Captain My Captain about Lincoln’s Assassination Walt Whitman (Link) “Poet of American Democracy” NYC Themes Celebrated Democracy Spirit of the Individual Liberation of individual Pleasures of the Flesh American Spirit Emotional and Physical Release Personal fulfillment Homosexual

13. Stop this day and night with me, and you shall          possess the origin of all poems, You shall possess the good of the earth and sun —          there are millions of suns left, You shall no longer take things at second or third          hand, nor look through the eyes of the dead,          nor feed on the spectres in books, You shall not look through my eyes either, nor          take things from me, You shall listen to all sides, and filter them from          yourself.

14. Romanticism in Literature 3 Herman Melville (link) NY, 1819 Best of his era Moby Dick pub 1851 Human spirit was troubled Self Destructive Man against nature

15. Romanticism in Literature 4 Poe exposes… “the underside of the American dream of the self-made man and showed the price of materialism and excessive competition -- loneliness, alienation, and images of death-in-life.” • Edgar Allen Poe (link) • Died 1849 • Poems and stories • Sad and Macabre • 1845 the Raven • Theme of individuals rising above to see deeper world of spirit and emotion

16. Transcendentalists(Link) • Emerges out of Romanticism • New England • Reaction against traditional Logic and Enlightenment- non-conformist values • Independent thinking • Referred to reason as the ability to grasp beauty and truth through--- •  Instinct and Emotion • (the highest human faculties)

17. More Transcendentalism • TRANSCENDENTALISM = a philosophy that asserts the primacy of the SPIRITUAL over the MATERIAL and EMPIRICAL • According to Kant, there are some ideas and aspects of knowledge which are beyond what the senses can perceive, • but are INTUITIONS of the mind itself – he named them TRANSCENDENTAL FORMS • The TRANSCENDENT is the fundamental reality • The ultimate truth transcends the physical world

18. Transcendentalists and Nature Nature was the source of deep Human inspiration Helps individuals see truth within their souls Genuine Spirituality come through communion with nature

19. Super individualism was at their core. Philosophically though, there was a center and it was about the notion of spontaneous reason. people are capable of discovering a truth solely on the basis of intuition. Walter Harding, in The Days of Henry Thoreau, says Kant and Hegel argued that there is a body of knowledge within man, innate, and that this knowledge transcended the senses, thus Transcendentalism. This knowledge was the voice of God within Man. It was central to the Transcendentalists' belief that the child was born with an ability to tell right from wrong. His moral sense became calloused as he grew and listened to the world rather than that inner voice. Particularly Alcott called for a return to a childish innocence and for one to heed the voice of God within.

20. Ralph Waldo Emerson (link) Advocated the commitment of the individual to full exploration of the inner capacities. Leader, Unitarian Minister, devoted to Transcendentalism Wrote Essays, Lectures, Very Popular

21. Emerson: the Nationalist Wanted cultural Independence 1837 “The American Scholar” American dependence on culture & art is over Truth & beauty can be derived from instinct & creative genius “Let the single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts there abide. And a huge world will come round to him.”

22. R.W. Emerson Essay “Nature” 1836 In the quest for Self-Fulfillment Individuals should work for Communion with Nature “In the woods, we return to reason and faith… Standing on the bare ground my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, all mean egotism vanishes… I am part and particle of God.”

23. RW Emerson: essay 1841 “Self Reliance” • Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind” • Self Reliance: • was a quest for unity of the Universe • The wholeness of god • The great spiritual force/essence of spiritual soul • Each person has innate capacity to find divinity personally

24. Henry David Thoreau • Transcendentalist • Repudiated repressive forces • Individuals should: • Work for self-realization • Resist conformity • Should respond to own instincts • Walden- in the Concord (Mass) Woods • Most famous book • Lived alone for 2 years

25. Thoreau “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to confront only the essential facts of life and see if I could not learn what It had to teach. And not when I came to die I discover that I had not lived”

26. Thoreau • Went to jail briefly • Refused to pay a Poll Tax • Protested Slavery • 1849: Essay “Resistance to Civil Government” • An individual’s personal morality has first claim on his actions • Government that violated personal morality had no legitimate authority • An individual response should be • Civil Disobedience or Passive Resistence

27. Utopian Societies, Brook Farm, New Harmony, Oneida Community, Morman Utopian movements are radical manifestations of the reform impulse. They have the common vision to remake society in a “more perfect way” Communal characteristics Separate from mainstream society Cooperative

28. Utopian Movements • Brook Farm • Massachusetts 1841-47 • Transcendentalists • Individual strives for Self- Realization • Communal • Leisure is key • New Harmony • Robert Owen • “A village of cooperation” • Oneida Community 1848 • NY • Rejected traditional family and marriage values

29. Oneida Community • Oneida Community 1848 • NY • John Humphrey Noyes • Rejected traditional family and marriage values • All residents were married to all other residents • No permanent conjugal ties • Sexual behavior was monitored to prevent abuse. • Children raised communally • Liberation from the demands of male lust.

30. Shakers • Religious extremists • Re-defined traditional sexuality • Founded 1770s • Northeast + Northwest 1840s • “Shaking” ecstatic movement- would “shake themselves free from sin” while performing a loud chant. • Commitment to Celibacy!? • Voluntary • No children born into Shakerism • Contact between men and women was limited • Social discipline was important A view of Shaker Meeting from 1885. A photographer from the Poland Spring Hotel took this image. The Shakers are seated in the front benches. The spectators and guests from the Poland Spring Hotel are in the back rows.

31. Mormons Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS) Joseph Smith (prophet for Mormons) 1830s Book of Mormon Translation of set of Golden Tablets Ancient Civilization in America (one of lost tribes of Israel) Dark Skin = Sin Story of “American Hebrews”

32. Joseph Smith Brigham Young

33. Mormons Continued • Smith creates the movement and obtains converts • Rigid way of life: • Polygamy • Secrecy • Life Style (very prescriptive, foods, behavior) • New York, Illinois, • Smith Arrested and killed by mob • Brigham Young takes the 12000 converts WEST to Utah

35. Temperance= Movement Against Alcohol (link) Religious based Social Reform Movement Crusade “The church must take… on subject of Temperance, the moral reform, all the subjects of practical morality.” Crime, disorder, poverty caused by alcoholism Drinking was especially a problem for Women- husband abuse them, and kids, and drink the money.

37. Temperance (Really good link) 1826 American Society for the Promotion of Temperance Preached abstinence Large meetings “Going on the Wagon” Will later evolve into national movement Women’s Christian Temperance Union 1878 Anti-Saloon League 1880s Eventually, under Progressives, will lead to prohibition of Alcohol 18th Amendment to the Constitution last 1920-1933.

38. Education • Public Education not widely established • Some progress in Massachusetts • New interest in Pub Ed • To create a stable social values=conformity • Horace Mann is the leader

39. Education • Mann • “An educated electorate is essential to the working of a free Political system.” • Education “only way to counter…the tendency to domination of capital and servility of labor.” • Advocated protestant values- thrift, order, discipline, punctuality, respect for authority • Not wide spread change comes from this movement.

40. Medical Reforms • Phrenology • Foolish • Germ Theory

41. Asylum (link) and Prison Reforms • Rehabilitation is the key • Asylum=mental health • Prison= criminals • Rise of the Penitentiary • “A place to cultivate penitence” • Through discipline Problem- Mentally ill and criminals kept in terrible conditions Reform is key • Dorothea Dix • Some progress

42. Feminism • Women were active in reform and Revival- 2nd Great Awakening • Temperance • Abolition • Women’s rights • Many women begin to call for women’s rights • “Men and women were created equal. They are both moral and accountable beings and whatever is right for man to do is right for women to do.”

43. Women’s Rights Movement • Lucretia Mott • Elizabeth Cady Stanton • Susan B. Anthony • Strong connection between Women’s Rights and Abolition movement

44. Seneca Falls Convention 1848 (link) • Elizabeth Cady Stanton • Susan B. Anthony • Lucretia Mott • Fredrick Douglass • Declaration of Sentiments • Emulated Declaration of Independence