unit 4 part 1

What was the American Renaissance?

A flourishing of American literature and philosophy. Ralph Waldo Emerson helped influence it.

Who was Ralph Waldo Emerson?

A leading voice of transcendentalism who challenged the rational ideas of the Enlightenment.

What was transcendentalism?

An intellectual movement that emphasized individual intuition, spiritual insight, and a deeper understanding of nature and existence.

How did Alexis de Tocqueville describe individualism?

He used the word to describe social isolation and the loss of connections through class, associations, and family; people seemed to have to fend for themselves.

How was transcendentalism influenced by romanticism?

Transcendentalists embraced human passion and sought deeper insight into the mysteries of existence.

What was Emerson's view of organized religion?

He rejected organized religion and believed individuals could have a direct spiritual connection with God.

What was Emerson's pantheistic view of nature?

He believed nature was saturated with the presence of God.

What were lyceums?

Lecture halls and public forums where poets, preachers, scientists, and reformers gave lectures.

When did the lyceum movement begin, and where was it popular?

It began in 1826 and was popular in the North and Midwest. It was less popular in the South, where the middle class was smaller and education was less emphasized.

What did Emerson encourage people to do?

Reject tradition, practice self-discipline and civic responsibility, and avoid allowing work, money, and consumption to destroy their spiritual lives.

Who was Henry David Thoreau, and what did he write?

A transcendentalist who wrote Walden, or Life in the Woods (1854), about searching for meaning beyond artificial life.

What did Thoreau do at Walden Pond?

After his brother's death, he built a cabin near Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts, and lived alone there for two years.

What was the main idea of Thoreau's Walden?

People should live deliberately, focus on what is essential, and think independently instead of simply following others.

What did Emerson argue in 'The American Scholar' (1837)?

He urged American writers to free themselves from Old Europe and find inspiration in ordinary Americans.

Who was Walt Whitman, and what did he write?

A poet who wrote Leaves of Grass (1855), a collection centered on the individual.

What was the main message of Whitman's Leaves of Grass?

It celebrated the individual and connected the value of each person to the democratic ideal.

Who was Margaret Fuller, and what did she write?

A transcendentalist who wrote Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1844), arguing that women deserved independence and a spiritual relationship with God.

What did Margaret Fuller organize in 1839?

Transcendentalist conversations, or discussion groups, for educated Boston women.

Who criticized transcendentalism through literature?

Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville.

What did Nathaniel Hawthorne write, and what did it explore?

The Scarlet Letter (1850), which explored the consequences of ignoring social restraints.

What did Herman Melville write, and what did it suggest about individualism?

Moby-Dick (1851). Captain Ahab's obsessive hunt showed an individual lacking discipline and self-restraint; the quest ends in disaster.

What were utopian societies?

Communal experiments in which people tried to create ideal communities, often through shared property and new social arrangements.

What was Brook Farm?

A communal experiment outside Boston that attracted visitors such as Emerson, Thoreau, and Fuller.

Why did Brook Farm fail?

Its members lacked farming skills, struggled to sustain the community, and a fire in 1846 closed the farm.

Who founded the Shakers, and what was their religious community called?

Mother Ann Lee led the Shakers, formally called the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing.

What made the Shakers distinctive?

They practiced communal living, shared property, used ecstatic dances in worship, and allowed women and men to hold leadership roles.

What did Shakers pledge to abstain from?

Alcohol, politics, war, and marriage; they also abstained from sexual intercourse.

How many Shaker communities were founded, and where were they concentrated?

They founded about 20 communities, mainly in New England, New York, and Ohio.

Why did the Shaker movement decline?

Because they did not have children and relied on conversions and orphaned children; the growth of public and private orphanages reduced the number of children available to them.

What was the Oneida Community?

A communal society founded in Oneida, New York, in 1848 by John Humphrey Noyes.

What did the Oneida Community believe?

It believed in Perfectionism: that Heaven could be attained on Earth because Jesus had already returned in 70 CE.

What happened to the Oneida Community?

It reached about 300 members, began manufacturing silverware in 1877, and dissolved by 1881.

What was Fourierism?

A form of socialism based on Charles Fourier's ideas in which workers served the community and property was shared.

Who was Charles Fourier's leading American disciple?

Albert Brisbane.

Why did Fourierist communities collapse?

Members fought over responsibilities.

What was the phalanx in Fourierism supposed to do?

It was a communal system intended to provide economic stability and greater freedom for women as well as men.

Who was Joseph Smith?

The founder of the Latter-day Saint movement, who published the Book of Mormon in 1830.

What did Joseph Smith claim about the Book of Mormon?

He claimed it was transcribed from ancient records shown to him by an angel named Moroni.

What beliefs and practices did Joseph Smith promote?

He urged patriarchal authority and advocated polygamy, the practice of a man having multiple wives.

Where did Joseph Smith settle, and how large did the community become?

He settled in Nauvoo, Illinois, which had about 30,000 residents by the early 1840s.

How did Joseph Smith die?

In 1844, he and his brother were murdered by an anti-Mormon mob while being held in an Illinois jail.

Who was Brigham Young?

Joseph Smith's leading disciple, who led about 6,500 Mormons to present-day Utah.

What was the Mormon War?

A conflict in which the federal government responded to Mormon resistance to federal authority by sending an army under President James Buchanan.

What happened during the 1857 Mountain Meadows Massacre, according to the slides?

A Mormon militia massacred about 120 settlers traveling to California.

What did President Buchanan offer the Mormons?

A pardon if they submitted to federal authority.

What was David Walker's Appeal?

An 1829 pamphlet titled An Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World that protested racial inequality and slavery.

What did David Walker urge free African Americans to do?

Use legal means to fight slavery. Although his writing warned of possible revolt if justice was delayed, his call for a slave revolt was not endorsed at the 1830 national convention.

Who was Nat Turner, and what happened in 1831?

Nat Turner, an enslaved man in Virginia, led a revolt in which 55 people were killed.

How did white authorities respond to Nat Turner's revolt?

White cavalry killed about 40 enslaved people in two days, and Turner was later hanged.

What was one major result of Nat Turner's revolt?

Southern states strengthened slave codes and prohibited teaching enslaved people to read. A Virginia proposal for gradual emancipation and colonization failed.

Who was William Lloyd Garrison?

A leading abolitionist who demanded immediate abolition and founded the newspaper The Liberator (1831–1865).

What was The Liberator?

William Lloyd Garrison's weekly antislavery newspaper, published from 1831 to 1865.

What organization did Garrison help found in 1833?

The American Anti-Slavery Society, founded with Theodore Weld and other abolitionists.

What did Lucretia Mott establish in 1833?

The Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society.

What was the American Anti-Slavery Society's 'great postal campaign'?

A campaign that used mass-produced pamphlets and the mail to spread antislavery ideas.

What was the Underground Railroad, and who was a leading figure?

A network that helped enslaved people escape to freedom; Harriet Tubman was one of its best-known leaders.

What did the Fugitive Slave Law of 1793 allow?

It allowed enslavers and slave catchers to seize people who had escaped slavery.

Why did some abolitionists help fugitives reach Canada?

Canada was under British rule and refused to extradite escaped enslaved people to the United States.

What did Theodore Weld publish in 1837?

The Bible Against Slavery, which used religious arguments to appeal to Americans.

What was American Slavery as It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses?

An 1839 work by Theodore Weld and the Grimké sisters that documented the violence and conditions of slavery; it sold more than 100,000 copies in one year.

Who were Sarah and Angelina Grimké?

Sisters from a South Carolina plantation who became Quaker abolitionists and spoke out against slavery.

What did abolitionists demand in their political campaign?

They demanded the abolition of slavery in Washington, D.C., an end to the interstate slave trade, and a ban on admitting new slave states.

How many signatures did abolitionist petitions to Congress collect?

About 500,000 signatures.

What did Harriet Beecher Stowe write?

Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), a novel that depicted the realities and moral wrongs of slavery.

What did Harriet Jacobs write?

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, describing the sexual abuse of enslaved women by white men.

What did female abolitionists argue about traditional gender roles?

They argued that traditional gender roles could create a form of domestic slavery for women.

What was the gag rule?

A rule adopted by the House of Representatives in 1836 that automatically tabled antislavery petitions, keeping slavery out of congressional discussion until 1844.

What did Andrew Jackson ask Congress to do in 1835?

Restrict the use of the mail by abolitionists; Congress refused.

Why did the abolitionist movement split in 1840?

The American Anti-Slavery Society began supporting women's rights, causing disagreement among members.

What organization did some abolitionists form after the split?

The American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society.

What was the Liberty Party?

The first antislavery political party, organized by abolitionists who wanted to fight slavery through politics.

What were married women's property laws?

Laws passed in states including Mississippi, Maine, and Massachusetts between 1839 and 1845 that gave married women some property rights.

What was the Seneca Falls Convention?

An 1848 women's rights convention organized by Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton in New York.

What was the Declaration of Sentiments?

A document drafted at Seneca Falls that argued that 'all men and women are created equal.'

Who was Susan B. Anthony?

A political activist who worked for women's rights, including women's control over their wages and guardianship rights.

Who was Dorothea Dix?

A reformer who campaigned for prison and mental asylum reform beginning in 1841.

What did Dorothea Dix accomplish?

She helped create a national movement for state asylums for people with mental illness and pushed states to improve prisons and public hospitals.

Who was Horace Mann?

An education reformer who worked to improve elementary schooling and the quality of instruction.

What changes did Horace Mann support?

Lengthening the school year, establishing teaching standards, and recruiting well-educated teachers.

Who was Catherine Beecher, and what did she argue?

An educator who founded academies for young women and argued that women were especially suited to teaching children.

Why did women become most teachers by the 1850s?

School boards accepted arguments that women were well suited to teaching, and women were often willing to accept lower salaries than men.