Chapter 15: The Ferment of Reform and Culture (1790 - 1860)
The Second Great Awakening
Introduction/Background
Causes of 2nd Great Awakening:
Deism
Unitarianism
- Believed that God existed in only one person and not in the Trinity (God the Father, the Son , and the Holy Spirit)
- Stressed goodness of human nature
- Proclaimed their belief in free will and the possibility of salvation through good works
Effects of 2nd Great Awakening:
- Many converts
- encouraged the woman movement
- Shattered churches
- Created new sects
- Evangelicalism
- Swept up even more people than the First Great Awakening
- The Methodists and Baptists benefited greatly from the 2nd Great Awakening .
- It widened the lines between classes and regions.
- Now there was a lot of religious diversity.
Camp Meetings:
Charles Finney:
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greatest of revival preachers
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denounced alcohol and slavery
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served as President of Oberlin College in Ohio, which he played a big role in abolitionism
5. Feminization of Religion (a key feature to the 2nd Great Awakening)
- made up the majority of new church members
- hosted most of era's reforms
6. Fragmentation of Faiths/ Denominational Diversity
A. Along class lines
B. Slavery
7. Mormonism
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Joseph Smith- founder of the Mormon religion, recieved golden plates (Book of Mormon), and was murdered by a mob
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Brigham Young- leader of Mormons when Smith was killed, led Mormons to Salt Lake City
8. Establishment of Liberal Arts Colleges
Rise of Public Education: Free Schools for Free People
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There were not many public schools that were tax supported
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The higher class people gradually realized that if they didn't pay to educate the under class, the higher class would lose its votes from the dangerous under class.
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Teachers were low paid, school hours were short, small curriculum.
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Small one-room school houses.
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Mainly concentrated on the 3 R's: Reading, 'Riting, 'Rithmatic
Horace Mann
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He was secretary on the Board of Education
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Fought for: better school houses, higher pay for teachers, and a bigger curriculum
Other Major Reform Movements & Reformers
Dorothea Dix-
- reformer
- worked to improve the treatment of the mentally ill
- appointed superintendent of women nurses for the Union forces during the Civil War
- traveled to different asylums and reported the horrors of the treatment of the insane
Temperance Movement
Women's Movement
Lucretia Mott- A sprightly Quaker whose ire had been aroused when she and her fellow female delegates to the London antislavery convention of 1840 were not recognized.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton- One of the most persistent battlers for women's rights.
Susan B. Anthony- Fought for women's equal rights in courts, workplace and at the polls.
Elizabeth Blackwell - First female to graduate medical college.
Margaret Fuller- Edited a transcendentalist journal during the struggle to bring unity and republican gov't to Italy.
Grimke Sisters- Fought to abolish slavery.
Women's Rights Convention of 1848
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Unflinching feminists met at Seneca Falls, New York.
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Elizabeth Cady Stanton read a "Declaration of Sentiments," which in the spirit of the Declaration of Independence declared that "all men and women are created equal."
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One resolution formally demanded the ballot for females.
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The Senca Falls meeting launched the modern women's rights movement.
The Utopian Movement
Owenites
Brook Farm
- Located in Massachusetts
- Comprised of 200 acres
- Started in 1841 with about 20 people committed to transendentalism.
- Inspired Nathaniel Hawthorne to write the classic novel, The Blithedale Romance (1852)
Oneida Community -
- Founded by John Humphrey Noyes. He believed in the possibility of a perfect Christian community on earth.
- Thought that true Christians should posses no private property-nor indulge in exclusive emotional relationships, like marriage.
- All members of this society should be free to love one another in "complex marriage."
Shakers
Scientific Achievements John J. Audubon Birds of America
Artistic Achievements
Literature
Washington Irving- America's first famous author
James Fenimore Cooper
Transcendentalism
Background:
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Rejected the theory derived from John Locke that all knowledge comes to the mind through the senses.
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Feel that it rather "transcends", cannot be found by observation alone.
Beliefs of:
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
Henry David Thoreau(1817-1862)
Walt Whitman
Longfellow
Whittier
Lowell/Holmes (these two, along with Longfellow, are in a great historical fiction book called The Dante Club - you should read it sometime!)
Louisia May Alcott- author of Little Women
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) - ‘The Belle of Amherst’, American poet, wrote hundreds of poems including “Because I Could Not Stop for Death”, “Heart, we will forget him!”, “I'm Nobody! Who are You?”, and “Wild Nights! Wild Nights!”;
Edgar Allan Poe-American poet, critic, short story writer, and author of such macabre works as “The Fall of the House of Usher” (1840);
Nathaniel Hawthorne- wrote the Scarlet Letter about the time of the Puritans. He had a sad life which caused for his tragic writing.
Herman Melville- author of Moby Dick a sad story of good verses evil. Melville was a seaman and his tails of the South seas were popular; Moby Dick was initially unpopular.
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