Key Movements and Figures in 19th Century America

The Age of Reason

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.

Second Great Awakening

Religious revival characterized by emotional mass 'camp meetings' and widespread conversion.

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.

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.

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.

Woman's Right Convention of Seneca Falls

Gathering of feminist activists in New York, where Elizabeth Cady Stanton read her 'Declaration of Sentiments,' stating that 'all men and women are created equal.'

New Harmony

Communal society of around one thousand members, established in Indiana, by Robert Owen.

Brooke Farm

Transcendentalist commune founded by a group of intellectuals, who emphasized living plainly while pursuing the life of the mind.

Oneida Community

One of the more radical utopian communities established in the nineteenth century, it advocated 'free love,' birth control, and eugenics.

Shakers

Called for their lively dance worship, they emphasized simple, communal living and were all expected to practice celibacy.

Federal Style

Early national style of architecture that borrowed from neoclassical models and emphasized symmetry, balance, and restraint.

Greek Revival

Inspired by the contemporary Greek independence movement, this building style imitated ancient Greek structural forms.

Hudson River School

American artistic movement that produced romantic renditions of local landscapes.

Minstrel Shows

Variety shows performed by white actors in blackface.

Romanticism

Early nineteenth-century movement in European and American literature and the arts that emphasized imagination over reason.

Transcendentalism

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.

The American Scholar

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

(1785-1872) Methodist revivalist who traversed the frontier from Tennessee to Illinois in the first decades of the nineteenth century, preaching against slavery and alcohol and calling on sinners to repent.

Charles Grandison Finney

(1792-1875) One of the leading revival preachers during the Second Great Awakening, he presided over mass camp meetings throughout New York State, championing temperance and abolition and urging women to play a greater role in religious life.

Joseph Smith

(1805-1844) Founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons), the young gained a following after an angel directed him to a set of golden plates that, when deciphered, became the Book of Mormon. His communal, authoritarian church and his advocacy of plural marriage antagonized his neighbors in Ohio, Missouri, and finally Illinois, where he was murdered by a mob in 1844.

Brigham Young

(1801-1877) Second president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Young led his Mormon followers to Salt Lake City, Utah, after Joseph Smith's death. Under Young's discipline and guidance, the Utah settlement prospered, and the church expanded to include over 100,000 members by Young's death in 1877.

Horace Mann

(1796-1859) Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education and a champion of public education who advocated more and better schoolhouses, longer terms, better pay for teachers, and an expanded curriculum.

Dorothea Dix

(1802-1887) New England teacher-author and champion of mental health reform, assembled damning reports on insane asylums and petitioned the Massachusetts legislature to improve conditions.

Neal S. Dow

(1804-1897) Nineteenth-century temperance activist, dubbed the 'Father of Prohibition' for his sponsorship of the Maine Law of 1851 that prohibited the manufacture and sale of alcohol in the state.

Lucretia Mott

(1793-1880) Prominent Quaker and abolitionist, she became a champion for women's rights after she and her fellow female delegates were not seated at the World Anti-Slavery Convention of 1840 in London. Along with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, she organized the first Woman's Rights Convention at Seneca Falls in 1848.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

(1815-1902) Abolitionist and woman suffragist, organized the first Woman's Rights Convention near her home in Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848. After the Civil War, Stanton urged Congress to include women in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, despite urgings from Frederick Douglass to let freedmen have their hour. In 1869, she, along with Susan B. Anthony, founded the National Woman Suffrage Association to lobby for a constitutional amendment granting women the vote.

Lucy Stone

(1818-1893) Abolitionist and women's rights activist who kept her maiden name after marriage and inspired other women to follow her example. Though she campaigned to include women in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, she did not join Stanton and Anthony in denouncing the amendments when it became clear the changes would not be made. In 1869 she founded the American Woman Suffrage Association, which lobbied for suffrage primarily at the state level.

Susan B. Anthony

(1820-1906) Reformer and woman suffragist, with long-time friend Elizabeth Cady Stanton, advocated for temperance and women's rights in New York State, established the abolitionist Women's Loyal League during the Civil War, and founded the National Woman Suffrage Association in 1869 to lobby for a constitutional amendment giving women the vote.

Amelia Bloomer

(1818-1894) Reformer and women's rights activist, who championed dress reform for women, wearing short skirts with Turkish trousers, or 'bloomers,' as a healthier and more comfortable alternative to the tight corsets and voluminous skirts popular with women of her day.

Robert Owen

(1801-1877) Scottish-born textile manufacturer and founder of New Harmony, a short-lived communal society of about a thousand people in Indiana.

Audubon

(1785-1851) French-born naturalist and author of the beautifully illustrated Birds of America.

Stephen C. Foster

(1826-1864) Popular American folk composer, a Pennsylvania-born white, popularized minstrel songs, which fused African rhythms with nostalgic melodies.

James Fenimore Cooper

(1789-1851) American novelist and a member of New York's Knickerbocker Group, he wrote adventure tales, including The Last of the Mohicans, which won acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

(1803-1882) Boston-born scholar and leading American transcendentalist whose essays, most notably "Self-Reliance," stressed individualism, self-improvement, optimism, and freedom.

Henry David Thoreau

(1817-1862) American transcendentalist and author of Walden: Or Life in the Woods. A committed idealist and abolitionist, he advocated civil disobedience, spending a night in jail for refusing to pay a poll tax to a government that supported slavery.

Walt Whitman

(1819-1892) Brooklyn-born poet and author of Leaves of Grass, a collection of poems, written largely in free verse, that exuberantly celebrated America's democratic spirit.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

(1807-1882) Harvard professor of modern languages and popular mid-nineteenth-century poet, who won broad acclaim in Europe for his poetry.

Louisa May Alcott

(1832-1888) New England-born author of popular novels for adolescents, most notably Little Women.

Emily Dickinson

(1830-1886) Massachusetts-born poet who, despite spending her life as a recluse, created a vivid inner world through her poetry, exploring themes of nature, love, death, and immortality. Refusing to publish during her lifetime, she left behind nearly two thousand poems, which were published after her death.

Edgar Allan Poe

(1809-1849) American poet and author of Gothic horror short stories, including "The Fall of the House of Usher," which reflected a distinctly morbid sensibility for Jacksonian America.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

(1804-1864) Novelist and author of The Scarlet Letter, a tale exploring the psychological effects of sin in seventeenth-century Puritan Boston.

Herman Melville

(1819-1891) New York author who spent his youth as a whaler on the high seas, an experience that no doubt inspired his epic novel, Moby Dick.

Francis Parkman

(1823-1893) Early American historian who wrote a series of volumes on the imperial struggle between Britain and France in North America.

Self Reliance

Ralph Waldo Emerson's popular lecture-essay that reflected the spirit of individualism pervasive in American popular culture during the 1830s and 1840s.

Rendezvous

The principal marketplace of the Northwest fur trade, which peaked in the 1820s and 1830s. Each summer, traders set up camps in the Rocky Mountains to exchange manufactured goods for beaver pelts.

Ecological Imperialism

Historians' term for the spoliation of western natural resources through excessive hunting, logging, mining, and grazing.

Ancient Order of Hibernians

Irish semisecret society that served as a benevolent organization for downtrodden Irish immigrants in the United States.

Molly Maguires

Secret organization of Irish miners who campaigned, at times violently, against poor working conditions in the Pennsylvania mines.

Tammany Hall

Powerful New York political machine that primarily drew support from the city's immigrants, who depended on its patronage, particularly social services.

Awful Disclosures

Maria Monk's sensational exposé of alleged horrors in Catholic convents. Its popularity reflected nativist fears of Catholic influence.

Know-Nothing Party

Nativist political party, also known as the American party, that emerged in response to an influx of immigrants, particularly Irish Catholics.

Industrial Revolution

Shift toward mass production and mechanization that included the creation of the modern factory system.

Cotton Gin

Eli Whitney's invention that sped up the process of harvesting cotton. The gin made cotton cultivation more profitable, revitalizing the southern economy and increasing the importance of slavery in the South.

Patent Office

Federal government bureau that reviews patent applications.

Patent

A legal recognition of a new invention, granting exclusive rights to the inventor for a period of years.

Limited Liability

Legal principle that facilitates capital investment by offering protection for individual investors, who, in cases of legal claims or bankruptcy, cannot be held responsible for more than the value of their individual shares.

Commonwealth v. Hunt

Massachusetts Supreme Court decision that strengthened the labor movement by upholding the legality of unions.

Factory girls

Young women employed in the growing factories of the early nineteenth century; they labored long hours in difficult conditions, living in socially new conditions away from farms and families.

Cult of Domesticity

Pervasive nineteenth-century cultural creed that venerated the domestic role of women. It gave married women greater authority to shape home life but limited opportunities outside the domestic sphere.

McCormick Reaper

Mechanized the harvest of grains, such as wheat, allowing farmers to cultivate larger plots. The introduction of the reaper in the 1830s fueled the establishment of large-scale commercial agriculture in the Midwest.

Turnpike

Privately funded, toll-based public road constructed in the early nineteenth century to facilitate commerce.

Erie Canal

New York State canal that linked Lake to the Hudson River. It dramatically lowered shipping costs, fueling an economic boom in upstate New York and increasing the profitability of farming in the Old Northwest.

Clipper Ships

Small, swift vessels that gave American shippers an advantage in the carrying trade. they were made largely obsolete by the advent of sturdier, roomier iron steamers on the eve of the Civil War.

Pony Express

Short-lived, speedy mail service between Missouri and California that relied on lightweight riders galloping between closely placed outposts.

Transportation Revolution

Term referring to a series of nineteenth-century transportation innovations—turnpikes, steamboats, canals, and railroads—that linked local and regional markets, creating a national economy.

Market Revolution

Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century transformation from a disaggregated, subsistence economy to a national commercial and industrial network.

Samuel Slater

(1768-1835) British-born mechanic and father of the American 'factory system,' establishing textile mills throughout New England.

Eli Whitney

(1765-1825) Great American inventor best known for his cotton gin, which revolutionized the southern economy. Whitney also pioneered the use of interchangeable parts in the production of muskets.

Elias Howe

(1819-1867) Massachusetts-born inventor of the sewing machine. Unable to convince American manufacturers to adopt his invention, he briefly moved to England before returning to the United States to find his sewing machine popularized by Isaac Singer.

Isaac Singer

(1811-1875) American inventor and manufacturer who made his fortune by improving on Elias Howe's sewing machine. his machine fueled the ready-made clothing industry in New England.

Samuel F.B. Morse

(1791-1872) Inventor of the telegraph and the telegraphic code that bears his name. He led the effort to connect Washington and Baltimore by telegraph and transmitted the first long-distance message—'What hath God wrought?'—in May 1844.

John Deere

(1804-1886) Inventor of the steel plow, which revolutionized farming in the Midwest, where fragile wooden plows had failed to break through the thick soil.

Cyrus McCormick

(1809-1885) Inventor of the McCormick mower-reaper, a horse-drawn contraption that fueled the development of large-scale agriculture in the trans-Allegheny West.

Robert Fulton

(1765-1815) Pennsylvania-born painter and engineer who constructed the first operating steamboat, the Clermont, in 1807.

DeWitt Clinton

(1769-1828) Governor of New York State and promoter of the Erie Canal, which linked the Hudson River to the Great Lakes.

Cyrus Field

(1819-1892) Promoter of the first transatlantic cable that linked Ireland and Newfoundland in 1854.

John Jacob Aster

(1763-1848) German-born fur trader and New York real estate speculator, who amassed an estate of $30 million by the time of his death.