Study Notes on Antebellum Reform Movements and Social Changes

Historic Reform Movements in the Antebellum Period

Several historic reform movements began during the Jacksonian era and continued into subsequent decades.
This period before the Civil War (1861) is known as the Antebellum Period.
Diverse reformers focused on various causes:
- Establishing free (tax-supported) public schools.
- Improving the treatment of the mentally ill.
- Controlling or abolishing the sale of alcohol.
- Winning equal rights for women.
- Abolishing slavery.
Enthusiasm for reform stemmed from multiple historic sources:
- Puritan sense of mission.
- Enlightenment belief in human goodness.
- Politics of Jacksonian democracy.
- Changing relationships among men, women, social classes, and ethnic groups.
- The most significant source was religious beliefs.

The Second Great Awakening

Religious revivals swept through the United States during the early 19th century.
These revivals were a response to the rationalism emphasized during the Enlightenment and the American Revolution.
Rejection of Calvinist teachings of original sin and predestination in favor of more liberal doctrines like those of the Unitarian Church.
Calvinism began a counterattack against these liberal views starting in the 1780s.
The Second Great Awakening began among educated individuals such as Reverend Timothy Dwight, president of Yale College.
Dwight's campus revivals motivated many to become evangelical preachers.
Successful preachers of the early 1800s were audience-centered and easily understood by the uneducated, emphasizing the opportunity for salvation available to all.
The populist nature of these movements reflected the democratization of American society.

Mormons

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or Mormons, was founded by Joseph Smith in 1830.
Based on the Book of Mormon, which traced a connection between the American Indians and the lost tribes of Israel.
Joseph Smith gathered followers in New York before migrating to Ohio, Missouri, and finally Illinois, where he was murdered by a mob.
To escape persecution, Brigham Young led Mormons to the Great Salt Lake in Utah, where they established a community called New Zion.
Their cooperative social organization enabled prosperity in the wilderness.
The practice of polygamy led to hostility from the U.S. government.
The Second Great Awakening created new divisions in society, distinguishing newer, evangelical sects from older Protestant churches, and prompted social reform, especially in Northern states from Massachusetts to Ohio.

Reforming Society

Reform movements during the antebellum era initially aimed to improve behavior through moral persuasion.
After these attempts proved insufficient, reformers turned to political action and developing new institutions to replace obsolete ones.

Temperance Movement

The high rate of alcohol consumption (five gallons of hard liquor per person in 1820) prompted reformers to focus on alcohol as a causal factor in social ills.
The temperance movement became popular, originating from moral exhortation.
In 1826, the American Temperance Society was founded by Protestant ministers and others concerned about drinking.
The society aimed to persuade drinkers to pledge total abstinence.
In 1840, the Washingtonians, a group of recovering alcoholics, claimed that alcoholism was a disease requiring practical treatment.
By the 1840s, various temperance societies had millions of members, although German and Irish immigrants largely opposed this movement.
Eventually, factory owners and politicians joined reformers when it became evident that temperance could reduce crime and poverty and enhance workers' productivity.
In 1851, Maine became the first state to prohibit the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors; twelve states followed before the Civil War.
The temperance movement diminished during the 1850s due to the overshadowing crisis of slavery, but regained momentum in the late 1870s and led to the passage of the 18th Amendment in 1919.

Public Education Movement

Another reform movement initiated during the Jacksonian era emphasized the need for free public schools for children of all classes.
Middle-class reformers were driven by fears for the future of the republic regarding the uneducated poor.
Workers' groups generally supported the campaign for free (tax-supported) schools.
Horace Mann emerged as the leading advocate of the Common School Movement.
- As secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education, he fought for compulsory attendance for all children, a longer school year, and better teacher preparation.
By the 1840s, the movement for public schools rapidly expanded to other states.

Changes in Families and Roles for Women

American society was still predominantly rural in the mid-19th century, while the Industrial Revolution began redefining family dynamics.
Industrialization diminished the economic value of children.
Birth control usage led to smaller average family sizes, declining from 7.04 in 1800 to 5.42 in 1830.
More affluent women had leisure time to dedicate to religious and moral uplift organizations, exemplified by the New Female Moral Reform Society in New York, which aimed to prevent young women from falling into lives of prostitution.

Cult of Domesticity

Industrialization altered gender roles within families, where men traditionally served as moral leaders.
With men working outside the home for wages, women who remained home assumed responsibility for the household and children.
This shift gave rise to the idealized view of women as moral leaders in the home, a phenomenon known as the "Cult of Domesticity."

Women's Rights Movement

Women reformers, particularly those in the anti-slavery movement, expressed frustration at being relegated to secondary roles and excluded from policy discussions.
Notable sisters Sarah and Angelina Grimke opposed male opposition to their anti-slavery activities, with Sarah writing "Letter on the Condition of Women and the Equality of the Sexes" in 1830.
Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton also campaigned for women's rights after being barred from speaking at an anti-slavery convention.
The Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 marked the first women's rights convention in American history, where feminists issued the "Declaration of Sentiments," modeled after the Declaration of Independence, asserting that "all men and women are created equal" and outlining grievances against discriminatory laws.
Following this convention, Stanton and Susan B. Anthony led campaigns for equal voting, legal, and property rights for women, which became overshadowed in the 1850s by issues surrounding slavery.

Abolitionist Movement

The split in the abolitionist movement occurred as radicalism from figures like William Lloyd Garrison created divergent paths.
Seeking a more practical approach to reform, a group of Northerners formed the Liberty Party in 1840, nominating James Birney as their presidential candidate in both 1840 and 1844, focusing on ending slavery through political and legal means.
Black abolitionists, including escaped slaves and free African Americans, were loud critics of slavery. Notably, Frederick Douglass spoke of slavery's brutality from personal experience and later advocated for both political and direct action against slavery.
Douglass launched the anti-slavery newspaper "The North Star" in 1847.
Other key African American figures in the abolitionist movement included Harriet Tubman, David Ruggles, Sojourner Truth, and William Still, who helped fugitive slaves escape to free territories or Canada.

Violent Abolitionism

Figures like David Walker and Henry Highland Garnet called for radical solutions, advocating for slaves to rise up against their owners. In 1831, Nat Turner led a revolt in Virginia that resulted in violent repercussions, with hundreds of African Americans killed in retaliation.
Before this uprising, there had been some antislavery sentiment in the South, but fears of future rebellions, along with Garrison's rhetoric, ended discussions about abolition in that region.