Reform movements APUSH

Second Great Awakening

A religious revival movement in the early 19th century that emphasized individual salvation, emotional preaching, and social reform, leading to increased activism in causes like abolition and temperance.

Transcendentalists

A group of New England thinkers who believed in the inherent goodness of people and nature, emphasizing intuition, self-reliance, and spirituality over organized religion; key figures include Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.

Oneida

A utopian community founded by John Humphrey Noyes in New York in 1848 that practiced communal property, complex marriage, and mutual criticism; known for its silverware production.

Shakers

A religious group formally known as the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, known for celibacy, communal living, pacifism, gender equality, and their distinctive furniture and crafts.

New Harmony

A utopian socialist community founded by Robert Owen in Indiana (1825) that aimed to create a model society based on cooperation and equality; it failed after a few years.

Brook Farm

A Transcendentalist utopian experiment in Massachusetts (1841–1847) that aimed to combine intellectual work with manual labor; associated with writers like Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Mormons

Followers of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, founded by Joseph Smith in the 1830s; emphasized communal living and migration to Utah under Brigham Young after persecution in the East.

Temperance

A social movement that sought to reduce or eliminate the consumption of alcohol, viewing it as a moral and social evil that led to poverty and family problems.

Phrenology

A pseudoscience popular in the 19th century that claimed personality traits could be determined by the shape and bumps of the skull.

Graham Crackers

Invented by Sylvester Graham, a health reformer who promoted a bland vegetarian diet to curb lust and promote moral purity.

Asylums & prisons

19th-century reform movements led by figures like Dorothea Dix to improve conditions for the mentally ill and prisoners, emphasizing rehabilitation over punishment.

Education

Reform movement led by Horace Mann and others to establish free public schools, trained teachers, and standardized curricula to promote civic virtue and literacy.

Blind

Reformers like Samuel Gridley Howe worked to create specialized schools (e.g., Perkins School for the Blind) to educate and integrate blind individuals into society.

Deaf

Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet pioneered education for the deaf, founding the first American school for the deaf in 1817 in Hartford, Connecticut.

Abolition

The movement to end slavery in the United States; leaders included Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, and the Grimké sisters.

Women’s Rights

Reform movement advocating for women’s equality in education, property rights, and suffrage; highlighted by the Seneca Falls Convention (1848) and the Declaration of Sentiments.

Romantic Literature

A literary movement that emphasized emotion, nature, individualism, and imagination; major American figures included Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Walt Whitman.