Reformers

Horace Mann

• Father of American Education

• Improved public schools, promoted free, universal, and better quality education

• Established state-teacher training programs

Dorothea Dix

• (1821) - 1st penitentiary in Auburn NY

• improved treatment of mentally ill

• promoted humane hospitals and prison reforms nationwide

William Lloyd Garrison

• abolitionist and journalist

• The Liberator

• called for emancipation of enslaved people

• helped lead American Anti-Slavery Society

The Liberator

• Anti-slavery newspaper by William Lloyd Garrison (1831)

• published in Boston

• spread abolitionist ideas across US

Mormons

• Joseph Smith —> Brigham Young

• Utah

• Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints

Transcendentalism

• European romanticism

• movement emphasizing individual intuition, self reliance, and connection to nature

• Liberation from understanding and the cultivation of reasoning

• “transcends'“ the limits of intellect and allow emotions, the soul, to create an original relationship with the universe

Transcendentalist Thinking

• the infinite benevolence of god

• the infinite benevolence of nature

• the divinity of man

Transcendentalist Agenda

• give freedom to the slaves

• give well being to the poor and the miserable

• give learning to the ignorant

• give health to the sick

• give peace and justice to society

Temperance

• movement to reduce or ban alcohol

• “demon run”

• Frances willard —> led woman’s christian temperance union

• Beecher family —> promoted temperance and moral reform

• improving society, family life, and morality

Abolitionism

• movement to end slavery in US —> argued it was morally wrong

• speeches, petitions, and political action

• Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, Sojourner Truth

• inspired civil war and led to 13th amendment

Women’s rights

• movement for equality, voting rights, education, legal rights

• Seneca Falls Convention (1848)

• Declaration of Rights and Sentiments

• Elizabeth Cady Stanton Lucretia Mott, Susan B. Anthony

Educational reform

• religious training —> secular education

• 1860 - every state offered it to free whites

• Horace Mann —> universal schooling, longer terms, better teachers, improved curricula

Asylum and penitentiary reform

• movement to improve treatment of prisoners and the mentally ill

• Dorothea Dix

• promoted rehabilitation and humane conditions instead of just punishment

Henry David Thoreau

• Concord MA - transcendentalist, writer, philosopher

• promoted individual conscience, self reliance, connection to nature

• Walden (book)

• civil disobedience

Nat Turner

• enslaved man

• led violent slave rebellion in Virginia 1831 —> killing dozens of whites

• revolt caused fear and stricter slave laws across south

Second Great Awakening

• religious revival

• Charles Finney

• emphasized personal faith, morality, individual responsibility

• inspired abolitionism, temperance, women’s rights

Cult of Domesticity

• believed women should stay home and focus on household duties

Frederick Douglass

• formal enslaved abolitionist

• used speeches, writings, and newspapers to fight slavery and promote equal rights for African Americans and women

• The North Star

Working conditions

• unsafe

• low-paying

• long hours

• pushed for labor laws and safer workplaces

Ralph Waldo Emerson

• Transcendentalist

• Nature (1832)

• Self Reliance (1841)

• The American Scholar

Harriet Tubman

• conductor on the underground railroad

• gave 300 slaves freedom

• $40,000 bounty

• served as Union spy during civil war

The North Star

• Frederick Douglass newspaper

• anti-slavery

Declaration of Rights and Sentiments

• document from Seneca Falls Convention

• demanding equal rights for women

• right to vote, own property, education

• Written by Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Utopian society

• communities aiming for perfect social, economic, and moral conditions

• Fourierite, Owenite, Oneida, Shakers, Brook Farm, New Harmony

Abraham Lincoln

• started reforming in 1850s but became president in 1860s

Women’s Suffrage

• movement fighting for women’s right to vote

• Seneca Falls Convention

• National Woman Suffrage Association

• 19th Amendment