University of Maryland 4

Changing Context: From Early Republic to Jacksonian America

  • Shift away from the deferential, elite‐dominated “Early Republic” toward a noisier, more participatory democracy

  • Simultaneous transformations:

    • Political democratization (expanded white male suffrage)

    • Market Revolution (national markets, canals, railroads, cheap print, faster mail)

    • Early Industrial and Technological change

    • Urbanization and massive immigration

  • Social and cultural change keeps pace: revival of evangelical religion, new reform crusades, sharpening conflicts over slavery and gender

Second Great Awakening (c. 1820s!–!1840s1820s!–!1840s)

  • Continuation yet re-invention of the First Great Awakening

  • Shared traits with the 1740s wave:

    • Emotional revivals (“religion of the heart,” anti-intellectual style)

    • Public preaching outside established churches

    • Critique of “lukewarm,” elite clergy

  • New elements

    • Less Calvinist fatalism, more hope & human agency

    • Free-will theology → “You must choose Christ”

    • Emphasis on perfectionism (individual & social)

    • Faster diffusion via canals, steamboats, cheap newspapers, and the post

Key Evangelical Figures

  • Lyman Beecher (Congregationalist, CT)

    • Still Calvinist in training but stresses a “power to the contrary” (free choice to reject sin)

    • Family becomes reform dynasts: Catherine Beecher (Indian education), Henry Ward Beecher (Civil War preacher), Harriet Beecher Stowe (Uncle Tom’s Cabin)

  • Methodists

    • Heritage: John Wesley & George Whitefield

    • Circuit riders democratize