The Second Great Awakening and The Antebellum Social Reform

The Second Great Awakening

• wave of religious rivals 1790-1840
• key idea: millenarianism
  • 2nd Coming of Christ was immanent, humanity nearing the end of the history
  • US had. a divine mission to redeem the world by its example
• like First Great Awakening, the Trans-Atlantic was linked to similar movements in Britain
• highly emotional new forms of worship (controversial)
• tied to social, economic, and political changes
• many schisms and new sects
• common theological points:
  • individual choice in salvation
  • emotional conversion
  • personal relationship with God
• unlike the First Great Awakening:
  • broader and more diverse
  • rejected predestination
  • anyone could interpret the scripture
  • remaking society, not just religion
  • social reform movements started
  • utopian experiments

Antebellum Social Reform

• same forces led to social reform movements
• middle class Christian reformers create a “Benevolent Empire”
  • private organizations tackle numerous issues
  • poverty
  • prostitution
  • prison and asylum reform
  • child labor
  • alcohol
  • healthcare
  • slavery
  • women used domesticity to claim their leading roles
  • duty to safeguard morality obligated them to reform society

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