Key Concepts of 19th Century American Reform Movements

Transcendentalism

philosophical movement of the mid-1800s that emphasized spiritual discovery and insight rather than reason

Charles Grandison Finney

An important preacher in the revivalist movement

Second Great Awakening

Protestant spiritual movement that spread through America

Revival

a religious gathering that relied on emotional sermons to encourage religious feelings

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Leading transcendentalist philosopher and well-known writer

Henry David Thoreau

Author of Walden who practiced ideas of transcendentalism

Civil Disobedience

The form of protest that calls on people to disobey unjust laws

Dorothea Dix

Reformer who worked for improved treatment of the mentally ill

Utopian community

a small society dedicated to perfection in social and political conditions

Abolitionist movement

movement to end slavery

William Lloyd Garrison

Abolitionist leader and founder of the newspaper The Liberator

David Walker

A free black slave who urged blacks to take their freedom by force

Frederick Douglass

Escaped slave who became a noted abolitionist leader

Nat Turner

Leader of the most violent slave rebellion in the South

Emancipation

freeing of enslaved people

Gag rule

1836 rule prohibiting anti slavery petitions from being read or acted upon

Antebellum

the name for the Pre-Civil War era