[APUSH 1] Age of Jackson #2 Vocabulary

Nativism

Hostility towards immigrants

Know-Nothings (American Party)

Nativist Anti-Immigrant (Anti-Irish Catholic) political party

Romanticism

Belief that God/Universe has a plan for you & you’re destined to do things—Feelings over reason

• Opposite of realism (which occurs late 1800s)

Transcendentalism

The theory that man has the ability to give up his material possessions & become one w/ the natural universe/God—Crush the limits that your mind puts upon you

• Swear Off: taxes, politics, comforts of life, new invention

• New England writers and reformers

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

Embodied the Transcendentalist movement when he gives up all possessions & moves to Walden Pond

• Lives off the fat of the land for 2 years (to test Transcendentalism theory)

• Swore off “immoral” laws and taxes

• He believed poll taxes supported the Mexican-American war and the expansion of slavery into the Southwest.

• He stopped paying this tax in 1842 but the sheriff, Sam Staples, failed to take action against him for several years.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

Founder of Transcendentalism movement & leading literary figure

• Harvard educate

• Loves the city life

• He was a hypocrite—only writes about transcendentalism, but DOES NOT LIVE IT

• Preached to Americans to break away from European culture and create a unique American culture

Brook Farm (1841-1849)

Transcendentalist utopia in Massachusetts that includes equal rights for women

• Founded as a joint stock company by Protestant minister George Ripley,

• Promised its participants a portion of the profits from the farm in exchange for performing an equal share of the work

• Brook Farmers believed that by sharing the workload, ample time would be available for leisure activities and intellectual pursuits

• Ends because of a bad fire and heavy debts

• Remembered for its atmosphere of artistic creativity and an innovative school that attracted the New England elite

Utopia

Ideal society that gets away from the hustle and bustle of city life (return to nature)

• Ex: Shakers; New Harmony; Oneida community

Second Great Awakening

Starts in Western NY—revival of religion where ministers preached salvation by faith and hard work

• Different from Puritanism/Calvinism (predestination and original sin)

• Presbyterian minister Charles G. Finney starts it; appeals to rising middle class

• Caused divisions in society between newer, evangelical sects and older Protestant churches

• Mostly in northern states (from Massachusetts westward to Ohio); but did occur somewhat in South

Mormons

Church of Latter-Day Saints

Religious sect led by Joseph Smith (NY) eventually led to Utah by Brigham Young

Penny Papers

Newspapers the common man could afford

• Increases how politics reached the “Common Man” and therefore created more voting

Temperance

Consuming alcohol in moderation

• In 1820, the average American consumed 5 gallons of hard liquor per person

• American Temperance Society (1826) founded by Protestant ministers and others who were concerned with a high rate of alcohol consumption and its effects

• German and Irish immigrants opposed but did not have enough political power

• 1840 temperance societies had 1 million members

• Factory workers and politicians began to side with temperance

• Temperance reduced crime and poverty AND increase workers’ output

• In 1851, Maine becomes first state to completely ban sale or consumption of alcohol

• In 1919, the Eighteenth Amendment was passed, banning the selling of alcohol in the US

Horace Mann (1796-1859)

Leader of the educational reform movement

• Advocated for free public schools (taxes) for children of all classes

• Fears that the future of the republic were to be filled with growing members of uneducated poor (both immigrants and native-born)

• Instructions of morality were included in their curriculum

• Catholic schools formed to oppose the Protestant tone of public schools for Catholic children and foreign-born children

Republican Womenhood/Cult of Domesticity

Idea that women should be at home and care for the children

• Women’s sphere of influence was in the home—they were in charge 

• A woman’s duty was to raise children and take care of the house (raise good, moral children)

• A man’s duty was to financially support the family & politics

• Feminist split occurs at Seneca Falls Convention

Seneca Falls Convention (1848)

1st women’s rights convention in American history

"Declaration of Sentiments” – declared that “all men and women are created equal”

Listed women’s grievances against laws/customs that discriminated against them

Led by: Grimke sisters; Elizabeth Cady Stanton; Lucretia Mott; Susan B. Anthony

Occurred in Seneca Falls, NY

• Following the convention, Stanton and Anthony led a campaign for equal voting, legal, and property rights for women

• Campaign was overshadowed by the crises over slavery

Gradualism

Process of slowly ending slavery

Abolition

To immediately end slavery (usually without compensation to slave owners)

• Second Great Awakening helped fuel the view that slavery was a sin

Emancipation

Freeing of all enslaved people

William Lloyd Garrison

Radical abolitionist; Editor of the Liberator (anti-slavery newspaper in Boston); believed in total equality

• Led a moral campaign

• Abolitionists Split: moral v. political

• Political side created the Liberty party: their one campaign pledge was to end slavery 

• In 1840 & 1844, James Birney ran for President

Frederick Douglass

• Former Maryland slave that ran away to the North for freedom

• Most famous African American

• Self-educated

• leader of the anti-slavery movement

• Editor of The North Star (anti-slavery newspaper)

King Cotton

Refers to the amount of wealth cotton produced and how it ran the Southern economy

• Relationship with Britain

“Peculiar Institution”

Justification of slavery by saying it was beneficial to both the Master and the Slave

• Southerners knew slavery was immoral BUT it was the basis of the Southern economy so they turned a blind eye

• Relied on religious and historical arguments to support their claim

The Reform Movement was a regional phenomenon that occurred in Northern & Western states, but had little impact on many areas in the South

• Southerners were more committed to “tradition” and slow to support public education and humanitarian reforms

• The South thought of social reforms as a northern conspiracy against the southern way of life