Unit 4 Part 3 vocab

The Age of Reform

American Temperance Society

Founded in Boston in 1826 as part  of a growing effort of nineteenth-century reformers to limit alcohol  consumption

American Anti-Slavery Society

Abolitionist society  founded by William Lloyd Garrison, who advocated the immediate  abolition of slavery. By 1838, the organization had more than  250,000 members across 1,350 chapters

Appeal to Colored Citizens of the World

Incendiary abolitionist track advocating the violent overthrow of slavery. Published  by David Walker, a Southern-born free black

American Colonization Society

Reflecting the focus of early abolitionists on transporting freed blacks back to Africa, the organization established Liberia, a West-African settlement intended as a haven for emancipated slaves.

Book 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 and  dissolved when their communal home burned to the ground in 1846

Burned-over district

Popular name for Western New York, a region  particularly swept up in the religious fervor of the Second Great  Awakening

Cult of domesticity

Pervasive nineteenth century cultural creed  that venerated the domestic role of women. It gave married women  greater authority to shape home life but limited opportunities outside the domestic sphere.

Liberia

West-African nation founded in 1822 as a haven for freed  blacks, fifteen thousand of whom made their way back across the  Atlantic by the 1860s.

The Liberator

Antislavery newspaper published by  William Lloyd Garrison, who called for the immediate emancipation of all slaves.

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 A dozen other states followed Maine’s lead, though  most statutes proved ineffective and were repealed within a decade.

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. 

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

 Vivid autobiography of the escaped slave and renowned abolitionist Frederick  Douglass.

Nat Turner’s Rebellion

 Virginia slave revolt that resulted in  the deaths of sixty whites and raised fears among white Southerners  of further uprising

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. 

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

Peculiar institution

Widely used term for the institution of  American slavery in the South. Its use in the first half of the 19th  century reflected a growing division between the North, where slavery was gradually abolished, and the South, where slavery became  increasingly entrenched

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.

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.

Self-Reliance

 Ralph Waldo Emerson’s popular lecture essay that reflected the spirit of individualism pervasive in  American popular culture during the 1830s and 1840s.

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

Women’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.”