Second Great Awakening & 19th Century Reform Movements

Second Great Awakening

A series of religious revivals from the 1790s through the 1830s that transformed the U.S. religious landscape.

Charles Finney

A leading minister of the Awakening who promoted social reforms like abolition and equal education.

Theology of 'Good Deeds'

The belief that man played a role in his own salvation by making moral choices and doing good works.

Camp Meetings

Large, fiery meetings where thousands of followers were converted through loud speeches.

Evangelicalism

A religious approach emphasizing the importance of converting others to the faith.

Temperance Movement

An effort to severely limit or end the consumption of alcohol.

John Bartholomew Gough

A famous temperance lecturer who gave over 9,600 speeches after pledging to abstain from drinking.

Susan B. Anthony (Temperance)

Argued that alcohol was a women's rights issue because drunken husbands controlled the family's livelihood.

'Cold Water Army'

The name for followers who took the pledge to give up alcohol.

Success of Temperance

By the mid-1850s, average alcohol consumption dropped from six gallons to three gallons annually.

Dorothea Dix

A reformer who investigated jails and fought for the rights of the mentally ill.

Deplorable Conditions

Dix witnessed the mentally ill locked in unheated, dirty cells, often whipped or chained to beds.

Dix's Legacy

Her work led to the creation of 110 mental facilities; there were only 13 when she started.

Juvenile Detention Centers

Facilities created during this era to keep children out of adult prisons.

Horace Mann

Known as the 'Father of Public Education' for his work in reforming the school system.

Normal School

A school specifically created to train high school graduates to become teachers.

State Board of Education

First created by Massachusetts in 1837 to standardize curriculum and teacher quality.

Oberlin College

The first college in the U.S. to allow both women and African-Americans to attend (1837).

Cotton Gin

Invented by Eli Whitney in 1793; it made slavery more profitable and led to its rapid expansion.

William Lloyd Garrison

Abolitionist leader and founder of the weekly newspaper The Liberator.

Emancipation

The term for the immediate setting free of enslaved people.

Frederick Douglass

A former slave and 'star proponent' of abolition known for his eloquent oratory and autobiography.

Sojourner Truth

A former slave (born Isabella Baumfree) who traveled the country spreading the truth about slavery's horrors.

Grimke Sisters

Angelina and Sarah, sisters from a slave-owning family who moved North to speak against slavery.

John Brown

A radical abolitionist who led a violent raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry in 1859.

Seneca Falls Convention (1848)

The first national convention demanding more rights for women.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton & Lucretia Mott

The primary organizers of the Seneca Falls Convention.

Declaration of Sentiments

A document written by Stanton that mirrored the Declaration of Independence to argue for women's equality.

Suffrage

The right to vote; it was the most controversial resolution at Seneca Falls.

World Anti-Slavery Convention (1840)

The event where Stanton and Mott met after being denied the right to participate because they were women.