APUSH Period 4.4: Reform and Society in Antebellum America

Deism

Religious belief emphasizing reason and natural law, rejecting revelation and the divinity of Christ while viewing God as a creator who does not intervene directly in the world.

Unitarianism

Christian theological movement relying on reason and individual conscience, rejecting the Trinity and believing God exists in only one person.

Second Great Awakening

A major Protestant religious revival during the early 19th century in the U.S. that sparked social reform movements, evangelical enthusiasm, and new religious denominations.

camp meetings

Large open-air religious gatherings popular during the Second Great Awakening where revivalist preachers delivered passionate sermons.

"circuit riders"

Traveling itinerant ministers, particularly Methodist, who rode on horseback to preach and organize congregations in rural frontier areas.

Peter Cartwright

Famous Methodist circuit rider and revivalist preacher known for his energetic sermons and conversion of thousands during the Second Great Awakening.

Charles Grandison Finney

Prominent revivalist leader of the Second Great Awakening known as the "Father of Modern Revivalism" who promoted social reforms like abolitionism and women's rights.

"Burnt-Over District"

Region in western and central New York swept by intense religious revivals and new religious movements during the Second Great Awakening.

Adventists

Protestant Christians who emerged from the Millerite movement emphasizing the imminent Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

Mormons

Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, founded in the 1830s, who migrated west to Utah seeking religious freedom under Brigham Young.

Joseph Smith

Founder of Mormonism and the Latter Day Saint movement who published the Book of Mormon in 1830.

Brigham Young

Mormon leader who succeeded Joseph Smith and led the Latter-day Saints on their migration to the Salt Lake Valley in Utah.

perfectionism

Religious belief during the Second Great Awakening that humans could achieve moral perfection on Earth through divine grace and personal effort.

abolitionism

Social and political movement aimed at immediately ending slavery and liberating enslaved African Americans in the United States.

temperance movement

Social movement encouraging moderation or complete abstinence from consuming alcohol.

Maine Law of 1851, Neal Dow

First state law prohibiting the manufacture and sale of liquor, sponsored by temperance advocate Neal Dow ("Father of Prohibition").

Republican Motherhood

18th- and 19th-century idea that women should be educated to raise their children to be virtuous, patriotic citizens of the new American republic.

Lucretia Mott

Quaker abolitionist, women's rights advocate, and co-organizer of the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Leading women's rights activist and suffragist who drafted the Declaration of Sentiments at the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848.

Susan B. Anthony

Pioneer women's rights leader and suffragist who played a pivotal role in the 19th-century women's suffrage movement alongside Stanton.

Angelina Grimké

Southern-born abolitionist and women's rights advocate who, along with her sister Sarah, spoke publicly against slavery.

Sarah Grimké

Abolitionist and early feminist writer who advocated for racial equality and women's rights alongside her sister Angelina.

Lucy Stone

Prominent abolitionist and suffragist who was the first Massachusetts woman to earn a college degree and famously kept her maiden name after marriage.

Amelia Bloomer

Women's rights advocate and newspaper publisher who popularized comfortable women's clothing known as "bloomers."

Margaret Fuller

Transcendentalist critic, author, and women's rights advocate who wrote *Woman in the Nineteenth Century*.

Seneca Falls Convention, 1848

The first women's rights convention held in New York, where attendees issued the Declaration of Sentiments demanding equal rights and suffrage for women.

Dorothea Dix

Social reformer who exposed the poor treatment of the mentally ill, leading to the creation of the first mental asylums in the U.S.

Horace Mann

Educational reformer known as the "Father of American Public Education" who promoted universal, tax-supported public schooling.

Utopian communities

Idealized social reform experiment communities created in the early 19th century seeking to establish cooperative, harmonious societies.

New Harmony, Indiana

Communal utopian socialist experiment established by Robert Owen in 1825 based on equality and shared property, which ultimately failed.

Brook Farm, Massachusetts

Transcendentalist utopian community founded in 1841 emphasizing joint physical labor and intellectual life.

Oneida colony

Utopian religious community in New York founded by John Humphrey Noyes in 1848, famous for practicing complex marriage and silverware production.

Shakers

Religious sect led by Mother Ann Lee known for celibacy, communal living, expressive worship dances, and fine furniture craftsmanship.

Amana Community

Communal religious society established in Iowa by German Pietists focused on shared property and simple living.

cult of domesticity

19th-century value system emphasizing that women's proper role was within the home, embodying piety, purity, submissiveness, and domesticity.

Godey's Ladiesbook

Widely circulated 19th-century American magazine directed at women, reinforcing middle-class domestic ideals, fashion, and moral values.