Second Great Awakening & Religious Reform

Second Great Awakening

A major religious revival in the early 19th century in the U.S., emphasizing personal salvation, emotional religious experiences, and moral reform.

Burned-over District

Area in upstate New York known for intense religious revival activity during the Second Great Awakening.

Camp Meetings

Large, outdoor religious gatherings where preachers inspired revival and conversion.

Charles Grandison Finney

 Influential preacher during the Second Great Awakening, known for emotional sermons and advocating moral and social reform.

Shakers

A religious group that practiced celibacy, communal living, and gender equality; known for their craftsmanship and simplicity.

Brook Farm

A transcendentalist utopian experiment in Massachusetts focused on education, art, and communal living.

New Harmony:

A utopian socialist community in Indiana founded by Robert Owen; it failed due to lack of skilled workers and organization.

Oneida Community

A radical utopian community in New York that practiced communal marriage, shared property, and complex marriage.

Horace Mann:

 Leader of education reform; advocated for public schooling, better teacher training, and more standardized curricula

Seneca Falls Convention (1848):

The first women’s rights convention in the U.S.; called for gender equality, including suffrage.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton:

Organizer of the Seneca Falls Convention and co-author of the Declaration of Sentiments.

Susan B. Anthony

• Key leader in the women’s suffrage movement; worked closely with Stanton.
  
  

Temperance

 The movement to reduce or eliminate the consumption of alcohol.

American Temperance Society

 Founded in 1826, promoted abstinence from alcohol.

Maine Law (1851)

 First statewide prohibition law, banned alcohol sales except for medicinal use.

Abolition

The movement to end slavery in the United States.

Frederick Douglass

Former enslaved person who became a powerful writer, speaker, and leader in the abolition movement.

Sojourner Truth:

 Former enslaved woman who advocated for abolition and women’s rights.

The Liberator

An anti-slavery newspaper founded by William Lloyd Garrison.

Underground Railroad:

A secret network that helped enslaved people escape to the North and Canada.

Harriet Tubman

Former enslaved woman and key conductor on the Underground Railroad; led hundreds to freedom.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin:

Anti-slavery novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe that stirred Northern opposition to slavery.

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin; her book galvanized abolitionist sentiment.

Transcendentalism

A philosophical and literary movement that emphasized individual intuition, nature, and self-reliance.

Henry David Thoreau:

Transcendentalist author of Walden and advocate of civil disobedience against unjust laws.