Chapter 14: The Ferment of Reform and Culture (1790-1860)

The Age of Reason (1794)

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 (early nineteenth century)

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

(From the Greek name for the ancient Athenian school where Aristotle taught.) 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 A dozen other states followed Maine's lead, though most statutes proved ineffective and were repealed within a decade.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 (1848)

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 (1825-1827)

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 (1841-1846)

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.

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 (established ca. 1770s)

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 (mid-nineteenth century)

American artistic movement that produced romantic renditions of local landscapes.

Minstrel Shows

Variety shows performed by white actors in black-face. 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 (mid-nineteenth century)

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" (1837)

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.

Peter Cartwright

The best known Methodist "circuit rider" (traveling frontier preacher), he was ill-educated but with his big voice, flailing arms and muscular Christianity he converted thousands of people to Christianity.

Charles Grandison Finney

A revival preacher, with his powerful voice he lead massive revivals in New York, he preached old-time religion but was also an innovator, creating the "anxious bench" where repentant sinners would sit in full view of the church, he denounced both alcohol and slavery and eventually was the president of Oberlin College in Ohio making it a hotbed of revivalist activity and abolitionism

Joeseph Smith

In the "smoldering spiritual embers" of the Burned-Over District, Smith reports that he received gold plates from an angel and creates the Book of Mormon off of them, and not long after the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints (Mormons). He runs into opposition in Ohio, Missouri and Illinois, people don't like that the Mormons vote as a unit, drill their militia for defensive purposes and have more than one wife (polygamy). In 1844 Joseph Smith and his brother are murdered in Illinois.

Bringham Young

He takes up the leadership of the Mormons after Smith's death, although he had very little education he proved to be a good leader and preacher. He leads the Mormons to Utah to escape further prosecution. In Utah the Mormons set up farms through irrigation and their crops were saved from locusts by seagulls. Under Young's leadership Utah grows prosperous. He had 27 wives and 56 children.

Horace Mann

He calls for serious reform in the education system. He campaigned effectively for more and better schoolhouses, longer school terms, higher pay for teachers and expanded curriculum. His influence radiated out to other states and impressive improvements were chalked up.

Dorothea Dix

Women reformer who had a lot of compassion and willpower. She wrote damning reports on insanity and asylums firsthand and a petition in 1843 describing cells so foul that visitors couldn't even go in. Her constant prodding resulted in improved conditions in both prisons and asylums. She also introduced the idea that the insane were not willfully the way they were, just mentally ill.

Neal S. Dow

Mayor of Portland, Maine and an employer of laborers who has seen the effects of alcohol on his employees, and the effect of drunken workers on his pocketbook. Dow, also know as the "Father of Prohibition" sponsored the Maine Law of 1851 where both the manufacture and sale of liquor was illegal in Maine. Other states followed Dow's example but these laws were declared unconstitutional and repealed within the next ten years.

Lucretia Mott

She was a Quaker, who's anger was aroused when she went to the London antislavery convention of 1840 and she and fellow female delegates were not even recognized.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

A feminist, reformer and mother of seven who refused to say "obey" in her marriage ceremony. (She didn't say the part of her vows where she promised to obey her husband in all things)

Susan B. Anthony

A lecturer of women's rights who fearlessly exposed herself to rotten garbage and vulgar remarks. She became a kind of figurehead for the female rights movement, and progressive women everywhere were called "Suzy Bs" after her.

Lucy Stone

She kept her maiden name after marriage, causing later women who did the same thing to be called "Lucy Stoners"

Amelia Bloomer

She revolted against the current "street sweeping" female attire (long skirts and dresses) by donning a short skirt and Turkish trousers-"bloomers". They were mocked and ridiculed by many men.

Robert Owen

A wealthy and idealistic Scottish textile manufacturer he created New Harmony in 1825. New Harmony was a communal society of about a thousand people, but along with hard-working visionaries it attracted a sprinkling of radical scoundrels and the colony ultimately sank into a morass of contradiction and confusion.

John J. Audubon

He was a lover of American bird lore. He magnificently illustrated "Birds of America" which attained considerable popularity. The Audubon Society which protects birds was also named after him, even though as a young man he hunted and shot birds.

Stephen C. Foster

Made famous southern songs, ironically coming from a white guy in Pennsylvania. His most famous songs include "Camptown Races", "Oh! Susanna" and "Old Folks at Home". Foster made a valuable contribution to American folk music by capturing the plaintive spirit of the slaves. An odd and pathetic figure he lost his popularity and died a drunk. Lacking copyright protections he and other songwriters of the era earned pennies not profits.

James Fenimore Cooper

Followed on Washington Irving's footsteps he gained world fame by making New World themes respectable. He wrote "The Spy" a story about the American Revolution, the "Leatherstocking Tales" about a rifleman, and "The Last of the Mohicans" about a self-reliant hero. Cooper's novels sold well to Europeans who came to think all Americans were born with a tomahawk in hand. Cooper's deepest theme was an exploration of the viability and destiny of America's republican experiment. He liked to contrast the children of untrampled wilderness to the corruption of modern civilization.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Best know of the transcendentalists. Trained as a minister he was a never-failing favorite as a lyceum lecturer. Perhaps his most well know public effort was his "The American Scholar" address. This address urged writers to throw off European traditions and delve into their own style of literature. He was both a philosopher and a poet. His themes included self-reliance, self-improvement, self-confidence, optimism and freedom. He was a critic of slavery and supported the Union in the Civil War.

Henry David Thoreau

A close associate of Emerson, Thoreau was a poet, mystic, transcendentalist, and nonconformist. He condemned a government that supported slavery. He was a gifted writer known for "Walden: Or Life in the Woods" a book about his simple existence in a hut built on the edge of Walden's Pond in Mass.

Walt Whitman

Transcendentalist poet. Known for his enthusiasm. He encouraged Americans to move past the Old War.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

American poet that was influenced somewhat by the transcendentalism occurring at the time. He was important in building the status of American literature.

Louisa May Alcott

Author of Little Women. An important female figure in American Literature.

Emily Dickinson

Female Poet. Known for themes of love, nature, and death.

Edgar Allan Poe

American writer known especially for his macabre poems, such as "The Raven" (1845), and short stories, including "The Fall of the House of Usher" (1839).

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Author of the Scarlet Letter. Questioned the societies of the Older America especially the Puritans.

Herman Melville

Famous author. Not properly educated and still managed to create the classic Moby Dick, which wasn't popular until after his death.

Francis Parkman

A historian with defective eyes that forced him to write in darkness with the aid of a guiding machine; chronicled the struggle between France and England in colonial times for mastery of North America