chapter14

The Age of Reason

Thomas Paine’s anticlerical treatise that accused churches of

seeking to acquire “power and profit” and to “enslave mankind.”

Deism

Eighteenth-century religious doctrine that emphasized reasoned moral behavior and the scientific pursuit of knowledge. Most Deists rejected biblical inerrancy and the divinity of Christ, but they did believe that a Supreme Being created the universe.

Second Great Awakening

 Religious revival characterized by emotional mass “camp meetings” and widespread conversion. Brought about a democratization of religion as a multiplicity of denominations vied for members.

Burned-Over District

Popular name for western New York, a region particularly swept up in

the religious fervor of the Second Great Awakening

Mormons

Religious followers of Joseph Smith, who founded a communal, oligarchic religious order in the 1830s, officially known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Mormons, facing deep hostility from their non-Mormon neighbors, eventually migrated west and established a flourishing settlement in the Utah desert.

lyceum

Public lecture hall that hosted speakers on topics ranging from science to moral philosophy. Part of a broader flourishing of higher education in the mid-nineteenth century.

American Temperance Society

Founded in Boston in 1826 as part of a growing effort of

nineteenth-century reformers to limit alcohol consumption.

Maine Law of 1851

Prohibited the manufacture and sale of alcohol. A dozen other states followed Maine’s lead, though most statutes proved ineffective and were repealed within a decade.

Woman’s Rights Convention at Seneca Falls 

Gathering of feminist activists in Seneca Falls, New York, where Elizabeth Cady Stanton read her “Declaration of Sentiments,” stating that “all men and women are created equal.”

New Harmony

 Communal society of around one thousand members, established in New Harmony, Indiana, by Robert Owen. The community attracted a hodgepodge of individuals, from scholars to crooks, and fell apart due to infighting and confusion after just two years.

Brook Farm

 Transcendentalist commune founded by a group of intellectuals, who emphasized living plainly while pursuing the life of the mind. The community fell into debt anddissolved when their communal home burned to the ground in 1846.

Oneida Community

One of the more radical utopian communities established in the nineteenth century, it advocated “free love,” birth control, and eugenics. Utopian communities reflected the reformist spirit of the age.

Shakers

Called “Shakers” for their lively dance worship, they emphasized simple, communal living and were all expected to practice celibacy. First transplanted to America from England by Mother Ann Lee, the Shakers counted six thousand members by 1840, though by the 1940s the movement had largely died out.

Federal Style

 Early national style of architecture that borrowed from neoclassical models and emphasized symmetry, balance, and restraint. Famous builders associated with this style included Charles Bulfinch and Benjamin Latrobe.

Greek Revival

Inspired by the contemporary Greek independence movement, this building style, popular between 1820 and 1850, imitated ancient Greek structural forms in search of a democratic architectural vernacular.

Hudson River school

American artistic movement that produced romantic renditions of local landscapes.

minstrel shows

Variety shows performed by white actors in blackface. First popularized in the

mid-nineteenth century

romanticism

 Early nineteenth-century movement in European and American literature and the arts that, in reaction to the hyper-rational Enlightenment, emphasized imagination over reason, nature over civilization, intuition over calculation, and the self over society

transcendentalism

Literary and intellectual movement that emphasized individualism and self-reliance, predicated upon a belief that each person possesses an “inner light” that can point the way to truth and direct contact with God.

The American Scholar

 Ralph Waldo Emerson’s address at Harvard College, in which he declared an intellectual independence from Europe, urging American scholars to develop their own traditions.