APUSH MCQ (1835-1857): AMSCO Notes
Topic 4.9 The Development of an American Culture:
Early American culture reflected much of British and European cultures, as many settlers had come from these regions.
Although America greatly took influence from European heritage, by the early 19th century, it began to create a strongly nationalistic tone in relation to its culture. As nationalism continued to develop, regional variations became more evident.
Cultural Nationalism
Nationalistic ideology soared with patriotic themes infiltrating everyday American life. This surge was profoundly shaped by significant events like the War of 1812, which fostered a powerful sense of national unity and solidified the country's independence against foreign powers. The adult generation of Americans during the first decades of the 19th century was fervent nationalists, emboldened by their nation's resilience and eager to assert a unique American identity distinct from European influences. They firmly believed that their country was entering an era of abundant prosperity and democratic triumph. This period saw the emergence of a distinctive American culture reflected in literature, with authors like Washington Irving and James Fenimore Cooper defining American narratives, and in art, which began to celebrate American landscapes and historical events. Efforts were also made in education to promote a shared national heritage and values. Throughout most of the 19th century, the basic ideals of nationalism and patriotism remained dominant, manifesting in various forms, including a belief in American exceptionalism and the drive towards westward expansion.
A Changing Culture: Ideas, the Arts, and Literature
In the early years of the 19th century in Europe, there was a shift from the Enlightenment emphasis on reason, order, and balance towards romanticism
Transcendentalists: a small group of New England thinkers
↳clearly expressed romanticism: intuition, feelings, individual acts of heroism, and the study of nature.
The Transcendentalists
Prominent writers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau questioned the established church’s doctrines and the business class of the merchant class.
The transcendentalists valued individualism⤵ ⇢ downplayed the importance of organized institutions
argued for “mystical” and “intuitive” way of thinking as means for discovering one’s inner self and seeking the essence of God throughout nature.
Henry David Thoreau = pioneer ecologist and conservationist ⤵
His ideas and actions inspired the nonviolent movements of Gandhi and King.
Brook Farm (George Ripley, 1841): an experiment to see if the transcendentalist ideals could be lived out
↳short-lived utopian community based what on transcendentalism ⇢ prompted social and political progress
Arts and Literature
Democratic and reforming impulses were reflected in paintings, architecture, and literature during the Age of Jackson (≈ 1820-1840)
Painting many paintings began to portray the everyday life of ordinary people
↳ expressed the Romantic Age’s fascination with the natural world.
Architecture adapted from Greek styles to glorify the democratic spirit of the republic.
Literature became romantic while distinctly American. Partly due to the War of 1812, Americans became increasingly nationalistic and eager to read more works about American themes by American writers. ⇢ Most prominent writers came from New England or the Mid-Atlantic states.
Topic 4.11 An Age of Reform:
The Jacksonian era and many of the following decades included several historic reform movements.
↳ Pre-Civil War = antebellum period⇢ groups of diverse reformers emerged in this period supporting causes such as est. Free (tax-supported) public schools, improving the treatment of the mentally ill, controlling or ending the sale of alcohol, abolishing slavery, etc.
⇢Reasons for reform
Puritan sense of mission
The Enlightenment's belief in human goodness
Jacksonian emphasis on democracy
Change in relationships among me and women, social classes, and ethnic groups
Religious beliefs
Improving Society
Originally, the leaders of reform attempted to change people’s behaivor through the use of moral persuasion, appealing to individuals’ sense of right and wrong.⇢After trying sermons and pamphlets, they often moved to the use of political action with ideas of new institutions in place of the old.
Temperance
Reformers were prompted to target alcohol as a source of crime, poverty, abuse of women, and other social ills because of the high rate of alcohol comsumption⇢Temperance became the most popular of reform movements
↳used moral exhortion
American Temperance Society: Protestant ministers and others concerned with drinking and its effects
↳tried to persuade drinkers to pledge total abstinence
Washingtonians - a group of recovering alcoholics arguing that alcoholism was a disease needing practical, helpful treatment.
Movement was largely opposed by German and Irish immigrants⇢they lacked the political power to stop state and city governments from passing reforms.
It became clear that temperance measures could increase workers’ output on the job, thus factory owners and politicians joined with the reformers.
Maine was the first state to prohibit the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors.
In the 1850s, the debate of slavery began to take center stage, overshadowing the temperance movement⇢latter gained momentum in the 1870s with strong support from the Women’s Christian Temperance Union..
Movement for Public Asylums
Attention was drawn to the increasing #’s of criminals, emotionally disturbed persons. and paupers.
-These people were often forced into poor living environments in which they were regularly either abused or neglected
New public institutions were proposed in efforts to alleviate the suffering of these individuals
Dorothea Dix: publicized the poor treatment she witnessed; mentally ill persons were locked up with convicted criminals in unsanitary cells
Pennsylvania: took the lead in prison reform, creating new prisons = penitentiaries
Prisoners were forced into solitary confinement to force them to reflect on their sins and repent⇢led to a high rate of suicide among prisoners
Reflected a major doctrine of the asylum movement: structure and discipline would bring about moral reform
↳similar experiment = Auburn system: enforced rigid rules of discipline while also providing moral structure
Middle-class reformers were motivated to establish free public schools partly by their fears for the future of the republic → workers’ groups in the cities generally supported the campaign for free (tax-supported) schools
☆ Horace Mann was the key advocate for the common (public) school movement
Changes in Families and Roles for Women
American society mid-19th century = overwhelmingly rural
→ Industrial Rev. redefined familial roles in growing cities
↳Reduced the economic value of children
Birth control reduced the average family size, allowing women to now have the leisure time to devote themselves to religious or moral uplift-based organizations
Industrialization birthed the Cult of Domesticity, resulting in the women of households remaining home and taking charge of the household and children.
Cult of Domesticity: the idealized view of women as moral leaders in the home
Women reformers, especially those who partook in the antislavery movement, resented the way men relegated them to secondary roles in the movement
Seneca Falls Convention (1848):
Topic 4.12 African Americans in the Early Republic:
At the beginning of the 19th century, there was great hope for slavery to dissappear→. It was thought that the exhaustion of soil in the coastal lands of Virginia and the Carolinas and the constitutional ban on the importation and enslaving of Africans after 1808, would make slavery economaly unfeasable
-The rapid growth of the cotton industry and expansion of slavery proved this to be untrue
Free African Americans
Approximately 500,000 Free African Americans lived throughout the U.S. in 1860, representing a significant demographic, though still a minority. Of this population, nearly 50% resided in the North. While freedom in the Northern states enabled them to maintain family units, establish households, and at times own land, these opportunities were often severely constrained by systemic racial discrimination and economic barriers. Despite their legal freedom, they faced pervasive societal prejudices.
In response to widespread discrimination and segregation in white-dominated churches, which often relegated Black congregants to separate pews or excluded them entirely, many African Americans formed their own independent Christian congregations. These churches served as crucial social, cultural, and political centers, not just places of worship. A notable example is the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, founded in 1816 by Richard Allen in Philadelphia. It became a powerful institution for community building, mutual aid, and later, the abolitionist movement.
Nevertheless, strong racial prejudices persisted, severely hindering African Americans from achieving true economic and political equality. They were often denied access to education, skilled trades, and professional occupations, forcing many into low-wage labor. Politically, they were largely disenfranchised, unable to vote or hold public office in most states, even in the North, thus limiting their ability to advocate for their rights through conventional means.
Following and during the American Revolution, a significant number of enslaved people were emancipated. This was often driven by several factors:
Revolutionary Ideals: The rhetoric of liberty and equality inspired some slaveholders to free their slaves, particularly in the North.
Military Service: Many enslaved individuals gained freedom by fighting in the war, on both sides, often with promises of manumission.
Gradual Emancipation Laws: Northern states, beginning with Pennsylvania in 1780, enacted gradual emancipation laws, which slowly phased out slavery. These laws often stipulated that children born to enslaved mothers would be free after a certain age, or provided for the gradual liberation of adults.
Individual Manumission: Some slaveholders, particularly Quakers and Methodists, were influenced by religious and moral arguments against slavery and chose to free their slaves through individual acts of manumission. However, in the South, these acts became increasingly restricted by state laws as slavery became more entrenched economically.
This early hope for the disappearance of slavery, however, was dramatically undermined by the rapid expansion of the cotton industry and the associated increase in demand for enslaved labor, particularly in the Southern
Resistence by the Enslaved
Many whi were enslaved contested their status through a range of actions:
restrained resistance: Work slodowns and equipment sabotage is one of the many was those who were enslaved would subtly defy
running away: very difficult for an individual to escape and even more for women who were caring for their childern or pregnant→ all escaping faced organized militia patrols and bounty hunters. if they returned they faced serious physical mistreatment. The growth of the underground railroad and increasing demands of Southerners for stricter fugitive slaves willing to attempt running away despite risks
open rebellion: There were few instigated by those who were actually enslaved but their impact on both enslaved people and on White Southerners remained considerable
Hatian rev. caused dismay among slaveholder and led to Southerners resisting political recognition or any diplomatic interaction with Haiti
5.2 The Idea of Manifest Destiny:
Expansionists wanted the United States to extend westward to the Pacific and southward into Mexico, cuba, and Central America → by the 1890s islands in the Pacific and the Caribbean
Manifest Destiny: phrase expressing the popular belief that the United States had a divine mission to extend its power belief that the United States had a divine mission to exten its power and civilization across the breadth of North America
Forces pushing expansion:
nationalism
population increase
rapid economic developement
technological advances
reform ideals
Critics of expansion argued that the root of the expansionists drive was the ambition to spread slavery into western lands
Conflicts Over Texas, Maine, and Oregon
Texas- a mexican province Oregon Territory- claimed by the British
↳intrest in expanding into these territories largely resulted from American pioneers migrating into these lands during the 1820s and the 1830s
Texas Stephen Austin brought 300 families into Texas and in turn began the steady migration of American settlers into the vast frontier territory
↳by then Americans out numbered Mexicans in texas 3:1
The rif between Mexicans and Americans worsened when Mexico outlawed slavery in 1829 and required immigrants to convert to Roman Catholicism → many settlers refused to obey these laws → Mexico closed Texas to additional American immigrants→Americans stemaed into Texas ignoring the Mexican prohibition
Revolt and independence General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna elected himself as dictator of Mexico, abolishing the nation’s federal systemof government and inseifying the conflict
↳He attempted to enforce his laws in Texas leading a group of American settlers to revolt declaring Texas as an independent republix. → in it’s new consitution slavery was made legal again
Boundary Dispute in Maine
Ill-defined boudary between Main and the Canadian province of New Brunswick led to another diplomaitc issue arising in the 1840s
At this time Canada was under British rule (carried over from Revolution and the War of 1812) and American saw Britain as theirc country’s most significant enemy
Open fighting eruoted as a conflict emerged between rival groups of lumber workers on the Maine-Canadian border
Aroostoo War (battle of the maps): the conflict was soo resolved via treaty negotiated bt U.S. Secretary of state Daniel Webster and the British Ambasador, Lord ALexander Ashburton
Webster-Ashburton Treaty: disputed territory split between Maine and British Canada
↳settled the boudary of the Minnesota territory→ left iron-rich Mesabi Range on the U.S. side of the boarder
Boundary Dispute in Oregon
Oregon = vast territory on the Pacific Coast orginally streching from as far north as the Alaskan border
↳ at one point claimed by : Spain, Russia, Great Britain, and the United States
Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819: Spain gives Oregon to the United States
→ Many Americans by the 1844 election believed taking undisputed possesio of all of Oregon and annexing the Republic of texas was their country’s Manifest Destny
The Election of 1844
The Democratic Party in 1844 was split because of the possiblity of annexing Texas and allowing the expansion of slvaery
The north oppsed immediate annexation and wanted to nominate former president Martin Van Buren to run again
Southern Whigs were proslavery and proannexation rallying behind former vice president John C. Calhoun of South Carolina as a canidit
The Democratic Covention was deadlocked because of the Van-Buren-Cakhoun dispute
↳ James Polk was nominated as a dark horse (lesser known canidit) a protege of Andrew Jackson who was firmily commited to Manifest Destiny
Polk favired the annexation of Texas, teh aqusition of California, and the “reoccupartion” of Oregon Territory (Fifty-Four Forty)
Henery Clay: Kentucky, Whig nominee→ attempted to straddle the controversial issue of Texas annexation, opposing it, and the supporting it
↳alienated group of voters in New York State→ abanoded the Whig party to support the antislavery Liberty Party
Whigs loss of New York Electoral votesproved decisive and Polk was the victor