U.S. History - Unit 5 - Reforming Society

Charles Grandison Finney

Dorothea Dix

• A reformer who exposed the horrifc conditions in prisons and almshouses; she successfully lobbied for the creation of mental hospitals (asylums)

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

A leader of the women’s rights movement; she organized the Seneca Falls Convention and wrote the "Declaration of Sentiments."

Frederick Douglass

An escaped enslaved man who became a brilliant orator and author; he published the abolitionist newspaper The North Star.

Horace Mann

Known as the "Father of Public Education"; he campaigned for teacher training and tax-supported public schools.

Sojourner Truth

A former enslaved woman who traveled the country preaching about the abolition of slavery and the necessity of women’s rights.

Nat Turner

A preacher and enslaved man who led the deadliest slave rebellion in U.S. history (1831) in Virginia.

William Lloyd Garrison

A radical white abolitionist who published The Liberator; he called for the immediate and uncompensated end to slavery.

Second Great Awakening

A religious movement in the early 1800s that sparked various reform movements (temperance, education, abolition) by emphasizing personal responsibility.

American temperance

The movement to ban or limit the consumption of alcohol, which reformers blamed for poverty and family violence.

Antebellum

A term meaning "before the war," used specifically to describe the Southern United States in the decades before the Civil War.

Cult of domesticity

The 19th-century belief that a woman's proper role was in the home, focusing on housework, childcare, and moral guidance for the family.

Gag rule

A rule passed by Southern members of Congress that prevented any discussion or petitions regarding the abolition of slavery from being heard on the house floor.

Revival

Emotional religious meetings designed to awaken faith through impassioned preaching and prayer.

Seneca Falls Convention

The first national women's rights convention. It produced the Declaration of Sentiments, which famously stated, "All men and women are created equal."

Slave codes

Harsh laws passed by Southern states to restrict the movement and education of enslaved people, largely in response to fears of rebellion.

Abolition

The movement to end slavery immediately.