Second Great Awakening and Reform Movements

utopian communities

Over one hundred of these experimental communities were started in the 1820s to 1860s period.

Shakers

This early religious communal movement held property in common and separated men and women.

New Harmony

Nonreligious experimental socialist community founded to solve problems of inequity and alienation caused by the Industrial Revolution

Oneida community

This community, started in 1848, was dedicated to social and economic equality. They shared property and spouses, and prospered by manufacturing silverware..

Horace Mann

He was the leading advocate of the public school movement.

temperance

Reformers targeted alcohol as the cause of social ills. The movement started by using moral exhortation, then shifted to political action. Business leaders and politicians supported it because it improved productivity of industrial workers.

American Temperance Society

Founded in 1826, by Protestant ministers and others, they encouraged total alcohol abstinence.

asylum movement

In the 1820s and 1830s, this movement sought to improve the conditions for criminals, emotionally disturbed people, and paupers. They proposed setting up state-supported prisons, mental hospitals, and poorhouses.

Dorothea Dix

A reformer who was responsible for improving conditions in jails, poorhouses and insane asylums throughout the U.S. and Canada. She succeeded in persuading many states to assume responsibility for the care of the mentally ill.

penitentiaries

These institutions took the place of crude jails. They believed that structure and discipline would bring about moral reform.

public school movement

In the 1840s, this movement to provide free education for all children spread rapidly throughout the nation.

American Colonization Society

Founded in 1817, this organization transported free black people to an African colony. This appealed to moderates, racists, and politicians. However, only 12,000 people were actually settled in Africa.

abolitionism William Lloyd Garrison; The Liberator

In 1831, he started the radical abolitionist movement with the "The Liberator" newspaper. He advocated the immediate abolition of all slavery in every state.

Liberty party

In 1840, this political party was formed in reaction to the radical abolitionists. They pledged to bring an end to slavery by political and legal means.

Frederick Douglass; The North Star

In 1847, this former slave started the antislavery journal, "The North Star".

Harriet Tubman

Famous abolitionist, born a slave, she assisted fugitive slaves to escape to free territory.

Sojourner Truth

A United States abolitionist and feminist who was freed from slavery and became a leading advocate for the abolition of slavery and the rights of women.

David Walker

An African American who advocated the most radical solution to the slavery question. He argued, that slaves should take action themselves by rising up in revolt against their owners.

Nat Turner

In 1831, he led the largest slave rebellion in which 55 whites were killed.

antebellum period

The period before the Civil War started in 1861.

transcendentalists

They questioned the doctrines of established churches and business practices of the merchant class. They encouraged a mystical and intuitive way of thinking to discover the inner self and look for essence of God in nature. Artistic expression was more important than pursuit of wealth. They valued individualism and supported the antislavery movement.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, "The American Scholar"

The best known transcendentalist, his essays and lectures expressed the individualistic and nationalistic spirit of Americans. He urged self-reliance, and independent thinking.

Henry David Thoreau, "Walden", "On Civil Disobedience"

A pioneer ecologist and conservationist. He was an advocate of nonviolent protest against unjust laws.

Brook Farm

An attempted communal experiment in Massachusetts to achieve a more natural union between intellectual and manual labor.

Hudson River school

In the 1830s, this genre of painting founded in the Hudson River area, portrayed everyday life of ordinary people in the natural world

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Author of "The Scarlet Letter", which questioned the intolerance and conformity in American life. (p. 211)

Amelia Bloomer

She urged women to wear pantalettes instead of long skirts.

Second Great Awakening

A religious movement that occurred during the antebellum period. It was a reaction against rationalism (belief in human reason). It offered the opportunity of salvation to all

revivalism; revival camp meetings

In the early 1800s, this movement was a reaction against the rationalism of the Enlightenment. Successful preachers were audience-centered and easily understood by the uneducated

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints; Mormons

Founded by Joseph Smith in 1830. It was based on the Book of Mormon which traced a connection between the American Indians and the lost tribes of Israel. After Joseph Smith was murdered, Brigham Young led the religious group to the Great Salt Lake in Utah.

Joseph Smith

Founded the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints in New York in 1830. The church moved to Ohio, Missouri, Illinois, then finally to Utah.

Brigham Young

After Joseph Smith was killed, he led the Mormon followers to Utah.

women's rights movement

Women started this movement because they resented the way men relegated them to secondary roles in the reform movements. (p. 214)

cult of domesticity

After industrialization occurred women became the moral leaders in the home and educators of children. Men were responsible for economic and political affairs.

Sarah Grimke, Angelina Grimke

Two sisters, born in South Carolina, they objected to male opposition to their antislavery activities.

Letter of the Condition of Women and the Equality of the Sexes

Written by Angelina and Sarah Grimke, it protested males opposition to their abolitionist work.

Seneca Falls Convention

In 1848, this was the first women's rights convention in U.S. history. They wrote a "Declaration of Sentiments", modeled after the Declaration of Independence, which declared all men and women equal and listed grievances

Susan B. Anthony

Social reformer who campaigned for womens rights, the temperance, and was an abolitionist. She helped form the National Woman Suffrage Association.