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15. The Ferment of Reform and Culture

Deism
Thomas Paine’s The Age of Reason
Churches are “set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.”
Deism – belief in reason & science

1790-1860





Ben Franklin Thomas Jefferson

2nd Great Awakening

Unitarianism
Unitarianism – God is one being, not a trinity






2nd Great Awakening – result of the alternate views

of religion

Free will and salvation through good works Goodness of human nature God is loving Began in New England





Led to reforms in many facets of society “camp meetings”

The Second Great Awakening

Peter Cartwright
Best known of the Methodist

“circuit riders”

“Spiritual Reform From Within”




[Religious Revivalism]




Urged people to repent Knocked out people who tried to break up his meetings

Social Reforms & Redefining the Ideal of Equality

Temperance

Education

Abolitionism Asylum & Penal Reform

Women’s Rights

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Charles Grandison Finney
Greatest revivalist preacher







Trained as a lawyer Held massive revivals in Rochester and NYC Innovator of the “anxious bench” Denounced alcohol and slavery

“Burned-Over District”
“Burned-Over District” – Western NY, where many

descendents of New England Puritans settled


“hellfire and brimstone” sermons popular

Millerites

Social Class & Faith


Millerites, or Adventists, rose






Less educated of the


Wealthier, better

out of the “burned-over district”

educated from the East:


Hundreds of thousands of converts Predicted Christ would return on Oct. 22, 1844






Propertied Episcopalians Presbyterians Congregationalists Unitarians

South and West:



Methodists Presbyterians


Many of the churches split over the slavery issue

William Miller

Joseph Smith
Joseph Smith – found golden tablets in NY with the

teachings of the Book of Mormon written on them


Formed Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints

Mormons
Mormons experienced

discrimination due to their




Polygamy Drilling militia Voting as a group


Population grew quickly
Joseph Smith assasinated

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Brigham Young

Free Education


After Smith’s death, Brigham


Free education had previously

Young led the Mormons to Salt Lake City, Utah

been opposed as a hand out



Support increased Wanted educated voters


1828 Free public Education
Teachers were poorly trained

Horace Mann
Horace Mann – “Father of

Public Education”





Fought for better schools Longer terms Higher pay for teachers Expanded curriculum

Noah Webster
Known for his dictionary of

American English
Blue Back Spellers
Promoted patriotism

McGuffey’s Readers
William H. McGuffey produced grade school readers

in the 1830s



Taught religious values, morals, and respect for order Taught Protestant work ethic

Secondary Education
Small universities were built in the South & West
1st state school was the University of North Carolina

in 1795


Jefferson started the University of Virginia  Free

from religion or politics


Women were not educated
Emma Willard
Troy Female Seminary (1821)
Mount Holyoke Seminary (1837)
Oberlin opened doors to women

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An Age of Reform
Reformers opposed a variety of issues
Tobacco
Alcohol
Debtors prisons
Wanted criminal codes relaxed & reformatories created

Dorothea Dix
Dorothea Dix – teacher and

author
Reform of the mentally insane
Petitioned Mass. Legislature in

1843

William Ladd
1828 American Peace Society

formed
Fought for peace internationally
Civil War put an end to it all

Temperance Movement
Drunkenness was common and

widespread


Ten Nights in a Barroom and What I Saw There


American Temperance Society

formed in Boston (1826)



Stressed temperance Tried to enact prohibition laws  Maine Law

Women’s Movement

of 1851

Leaders of the Women’s Movement


Women had no voting rights
Were perceived as weak emotionally & physically
Seen as pure, nurturing and loving


Women’s movement came about as a way to

abolish slavery Lucretia Mott

Margaret Fuller

Susan B. Anthony

Amelia Bloomer

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Grimke Sisters

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Seneca Falls Convention
Seneca Falls Women’s Rights Convention (1848)
Declaration of Sentiments – “all Men and Women are created equal”
Demanded voting rights for women

New Harmony, IN (1825)
Communal society founded by Robert Owen




Brook Farm ( 1841)
Began in Mass., by 20 transcendentalists





Founded by George Ripley On 200 acres “plain living and high thinking” Lasted until 1846 (fire)

Oneida Community (1848)
Founded in NY
Lasted 30 years
Practiced free love (“complex

marriage”), birth control, eugenic selection of parents

Shakers
Led by Mother Ann Lee

Former textile manufacturer About 1,000 people Failed miserably

Early American Scientists
Interested in practical gadgets than pure science


Began in 1770s





God could be found within




Mathematician Nathaniel Bowditch – navigation Oceanographer Matthew Maury – winds & currents


Emphasized simplicity & ingenuity
Movement died out


Customs prevented marriage & sex

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Influential U.S. Scientists
Benjamin Silliman – chemistry, geologist (Yale)

Medicine
Medicine was primitive


Louis Agassiz – original research (Harvard)





Asa Gray – botany (Harvard)





John Audubon – painted birds in exquisite detail




Bleeding still use Patent medicines Barbers or butcher as surgeon


Smallpox & yellow fever
Life expectancy ~40 yrs

Artistic Achievements

Artistic Achievements


U.S. imitated European art
Greek & Gothic art forms popular
Thomas Jefferson – as architect

John Trumbull Gilbert Stuart

Monticello

University of Virginia

National Literature
Practical work: Federalist Papers, Common Sense,

Franklin’s Autobiography, Poor Richard’s Almanac
The Knickerbocker group




Washington Irving James Fenimore Cooper William Cullen Bryant  Thanatopsis

Charles Willson Peale

Transcendentalism
Literature movement, ~ 1830



Believed knowledge came from reason & inner light Individualism, self-reliance & non-conformity


Ralph Waldo Emerson



Popular essayist, philosopher “Self Reliance”


Henry David Thoreau




Condemned slavery Walden: Or Life in the Woods On the Duty of Civil Disobedience


Walt Whitman – “Leaves of Grass”

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Glowing Literary Lights
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow





“The Courtship of Miles Standish” “The Ride of Paul Revere” “The Song of Hiawatha” “Evangeline”


Louisa May Alcott


Little Women

Literary Individualists & Dissenters
Edgar Allen Poe






Nathaniel Hawthorne


Nature poems

The Scarlet Letter  Dealt with


Emily Dickinson


“The Raven” & many morbid horror stories Pit & the Pendulum Tell-tale Heart Inventor of detective novel

adultery


Herman Melville


Moby Dick  Good

vs. Evil

Portrayers of the Past
George Bancroft - “Father of American History”



Secretary of Navy, founded Naval Academy History of U.S. to 1789


William H. Prescott


Conquests of Mexico & Peru


Francis Parkman


Struggle between France & England for N. America


Historians were from North East


Anti-South bias

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