The Ferment of Reform and Culture
I. Reviving Religion
a. Softening of Religion & Deism
i. During the early to mid 1800s, religion wasn’t as “fire and brimstone” as in colonial days
ii. Thomas Paine wrote The Age of Reason, in which he declared that all churches were “set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit”
iii.
Jefferson,
1. Relied on reason/science rather than the Bible
2. However, they believed in a Supreme Being who had created a universe and endowed human beings with a capacity for moral behavior
b. Unitarianism
(
i. Believed that:
1. God existed in only one person, not the Trinity
2. Jesus wasn’t the son of God (deity – godness)
3. Stressed the goodness of human nature rather than its badness
4. Salvation through good works
5. Pictured God not as being stern, but as being loving
ii. This appealed to intellectuals whose rationalism contrasted sharply with the hellfire doctrines of Calvinism/predestination
c. Second Great Awakening
i. Was one of the biggest religious revivals in American history, even bigger than the first one
ii. Results were:
1. Converted many people
2. Shattered and reorganized churches
3. Numerous new sects
4. Missionary work increased (Indians & Hawaii)
5. Encouraged humanitarian reforms in:
a. Prisons
b. Temperance
c. Women’s movement
d. Abolitionism
iii. It spread through camp meetings – many people would gather to hear a preacher. People would dance, shout, etc.
d. Methodists and Baptists
i. Gained the most members during this time
ii. Emphasized personal conversion (rather than predestination)
iii. Peter Cartwright – Methodist – one of the most famous traveling preachers (“circuit riders”). He converted many people while traveling from TN to IL
e. Charles Grandison Finney
i. Was a lawyer, but became a preacher after a deeply moving religious experience
ii.
He held crowds spellbound in
iii. He did the following:
1. Preached old-time religion
2. Devised the “anxious bench” where repentant sinners could sit in full view of the congregation and he encouraged women to pray aloud in public
3. Denounced alcohol and slavery
f. Feminization of Religion
i. Women made up the majority of new church members
ii. Middle-class women were the ones who would most likely stay members of the church when traveling evangelists left town
iii. Preachers valued female spiritual worth and offered women an active role in bringing their husbands and families back to God
iv. Women began to not only get their families back to God, but also all of society
1. Formed charitable organizations (benevolent – kind-hearted and giving)
2. Spearheads most reforms
II. Denominational Diversity
a. Millerites or Adventists
i.
Many descendants of New England Puritans settled in
western
ii. Adventists came from this area and were named after their leader, William Miller
iii. They thought that the Bible said Jesus would return on October 22, 1844
iv. When Jesus didn’t show on that date, it dampened, but didn’t destroy the movement
b. Widening of Classes and Regions
i. In the East, the Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and Unitarians continued to rise mostly from the wealthy, better educated classes
ii. In the South and West, the Methodists, Baptists, and members of new sects came from the less prosperous, less educated classes
c. Slavery Issue and Churches
i. Southern Baptists, Presbyterians, and Methodists split with Northern Baptists, Presbyterians, and Methodists over slavery
III.
The Mormons in
a. Joseph Smith
i. From the Burned Over District (western NY)
ii. Thought that he had received some golden plates from an angel when he discovered them on his farm. He was able to decipher the hieroglyphic writing on them by “the gift of God,” which resulted in the Book of Mormon and the establishment of the Mormons (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints)
b. Hostility Against the Mormons
i.
His sect got opposition from his neighbors in
ii. Angered others by:
1. Voting as a unit
2. Creating a militia for defensive purposes
3. Polygamy
iii. 1844 – Joseph Smith and his brother were put in jail for destroying a newspaper press that published a paper that was against polygamy. While they were there, they were murdered by a mob
iv. The torch was passed on to Brigham Young. He was:
1. Aggressive leader
2. Eloquent preacher
3. Gifted administrator
c. Mormons
In
i.
1846-47 – Brigham Young avoided further persecution by
taking the Mormons to
ii.
1848 – Hordes of crickets threatened crops, but flocks
of seagulls appeared and ate them up (monument to the seagulls in
iii. End of 1848 – 5,000 settlers had arrived (many went 1,300 miles by pulling carts)
d. Brigham Young
i. Under his leadership, the community because successful theocracy and cooperative commonwealth
ii. He married as many as 27 women and had 56 children
iii.
Thousands of immigrants came from
iv. 1850 – Was made a territorial governor
e.
i. When President James Buchanan replaced Young with another territorial governor, he resisted. Rumors of a Mormon rebellion caused the President to send troops. Young gave up his post without bloodshed
ii.
Resisted the polygamy laws passed by Congress in 1862
and 1882, which delayed statehood for
IV. Free Schools for a Free People
a. Early Schools
i. Were for educating the poor, so many people thought badly of them and didn’t want to send their children to the “poor schools”
ii. Little support for public education
b. Public Schools Increase In Popularity
i. Better off Americans wised up. They realized that the poor might grow up to be a dangerously ignorant group armed with the right to vote
ii. 1825-1850 – Taxes began to be used for public schools
iii. With universal males, white suffrage during the era of Jackson, people felt a need to educate them to keep a free, civilized nation
c. Schools and Teachers
i. Schoolhouse consisted of:
1. One room
2. One stove
3. One teacher
4. 8 grades
ii. Stayed open only a few months of the year
iii. Teachers were:
1. Mostly male
2. Not well trained
3. Bad tempered (used the hickory stick)
4. Not well paid
5. Taught only reading, writing, and math
d. Reform & Horace Mann
i. Was secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education
ii. Campaigned for:
1. More and better schoolhouses
2. Higher pay for teachers
3. Expanded curriculum
iii. Improvements were made, but education was a high tax on the rich
iv. 1860
1. 100 public high schools
2. Million white adult illiterates
3. Black slaves in the South were legally forbidden receive instruction in reading or writing
4. Free blacks in the North were excluded from schools
e. Textbooks
i. Advances were made through improved textbooks
ii.
Noah Webster –
iii. William H. McGuffey – Published grade-school readers, which taught lessons in morality, patriotism, and idealism
V. Higher Goals for Higher Learning
a. Improving Education
i. The Second Great Awakening led to small, denominational, liberal arts colleges
ii. However, they weren’t very academically sound. Offered a narrow, traditional curriculum of:
1. Latin
2. Greek
3. Math
4. Moral philosophy
b. State Supported Universities
i.
First sprang up in the South; 1795 –
ii. Federal land grants helped them to grow
iii.
1819 –
c. Women’s In Higher Education
i. Was frowned upon in the early 19th century – a woman’s place was to be in the home
ii. People thought that too much learning:
1. Injured the feminine brain
2. Undermined health
3. Made a lady unfit for marriage
iii. 1820s – Emma Willard established the Troy (NY) Female Seminary
iv. 1837 – Oberlin College (OH) – opened up to women (was already open to men and even black men)
v.
1837 –
d. Libraries
i. Were private subscription libraries at first
ii. Then more and more public libraries were built
e. Traveling Lecturers
i. Helped spread knowledge to the masses
ii. 1835 – Were about 3,000 of these lectures at lyceums
iii. Spoke on science, literature, and moral philosophy
iv. Ralph Waldo Emerson did many of these
f. Magazines
i. Flourished in pre-civil war years; most died quickly
ii. 1815 – North American Review – long-lived
iii. 1830 – Gody’s Lady’s Book – lasted until 1898 (circulation of 150,000 – huge – appealed to women)
VI. An Age of Reform
a. The Second Great Awakening & the Reform Movement
i. Optimism in this movement caused people to want to do battle against evil and be free from:
1. Cruelty
2. War
3. Drink
4. Discrimination
5. Slavery
ii. Women were a part of the reform movement because it provided an alternative or escape from their traditional work
iii. There was also a desire to reaffirm traditional values in a world that is being corrupted by the market economy
b. Imprisonment For Debt
i. 1830s – Hundreds of poor were put into jail for owing even a dollar
ii. As the working class gained the right to vote, State legislatures gradually abolished debtors’ prisons
c. Criminal Codes
i. Being softened – number of capital offenses were being reduced
ii. Cruel punishments, such as whipping and branding, were being eliminated
iii. Idea of prisons changed – went from a place of punishment to a place to try to reform – “penitentiaries” – (for penance or correctional facilities)
d. Insane Asylums
i. Were being treated with cruelty – thought were cursed with unclean spirits (from medieval days)
ii. Thought that they should be treated like beasts
iii. Were chained in jails or poor-houses with sane people
e. Dorothea Dix
i.
A
ii. Traveled 60,000 miles in 8 years writing reports on insanity and asylums from firsthand observations
iii. This resulted in improved conditions and in a gain for the concept that the insane were mentally ill
f. American Peace Society
i. William Ladd led the group – his peaceful ideas came to fruition in international organizations in the 20th century
ii. Civil War was a setback
VII. Demon Rum
a. Problems of Drinking
i. Was tradition
ii. Hard and monotonous life
iii. Weddings and funerals became brawls
iv. Decreased the efficiency of labor
v. Increased danger of accidents
vi. Threatened the family
b. Temperance Society
i.
1826 – Formed in
ii. With a few years, thousands of local groups popped up
iii. Organized children’s clubs – Cold Water Army
iv. Used pictures, pamphlets, and lecturers (some were reformed drinkers)
v. T.S. Arthur’s Ten Nights in a Barroom and What I Saw There (1854) – described how a once-happy village was ruined by Sam Slade’s Tavern. The book was second only to Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin as a best seller in the 1850s
c. Temperance or Teetotalism?
i. Some reformers stressed temperance –
1. Strengthen the will to resist alcohol
ii. Others stressed teetotalism –
1. The total elimination of alcohol
d.
i.
Neal Dow, former mayor of
ii. He sponsored this bill, which prohibited the manufacture and sale of alcohol
iii.
Other States in the North followed
VIII. Women in Revolt
a. Rights and Duties of Women
i. Supposed to work in the home and subordinate herself to her husband
ii. She couldn’t vote (like black slaves)
iii. Could be legally beaten by her husband
iv. She couldn’t retain title to her property when she married (it went to her husband)
v.
However, rape and other crimes against women were
punished harsher in
b. Ideas About Women In the 19th Century
i. The growing market economy was thrusting men and women into sharply different economic roles
ii. Women were thought to be physically and emotionally weak, but artistic and refined
iii. They were to keep society’s conscience, with special responsibility to teach the young how to be good and productive citizens of the Republic. Men were considered strong, but crude, always in danger of slipping into some savage or beastly way of life if not guided by the gentle hands of their wives. The home was a woman’s special sphere – “cult of domesticity”
c. Female Reform Movement Gains Momentum
i. Increasingly some women believed that the home was really a cage
ii. They began demanding rights for women
iii. Fought for temperance and the abolition of slavery
d. Who Led the Women Rights Movement?
i. Lucretia Mott –
1. Quaker
who began campaigning for women’s rights when they were not allowed to a
ii.
1. Advocated suffrage for women and was one of the leaders at the Seneca Falls Convention
2. Wrote a newspaper with Anthony which focused on injustices suffered by women
3. Created the National Women Suffrage Association – Fought for women’s equality in courts, workplaces, and polls (also worked for a constitutional amendment to be adopted giving the right to vote)
iii. Susan B. Anthony –
1. Quaker who lectured for women’s rights
2. Women’s righters were called “Suzy Bs”
3. Registered to vote in the 1872 presidential election. When she tried to vote, she was arrested and fined $100. She refused to pay the fine
4. Created the National Women Suffrage Association – Fought for women’s equality in courts, workplaces, and polls (also worked for a constitutional amendment to be adopted giving the right to vote)
iv. Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell –
1. First female graduate of a medical college
v. Margaret Fuller –
1. Edited a transcendentalist journal
2. Took
part in the struggle to bring unity and democratic government to
vi. Lucy Stone –
1. She and her sister were antislavery advocates
2. Followers were called “Lucy Stoners”
vii. Amelia Bloomer –
1. Revolted against long dresses by wearing a short skirt with Turkish trousers (bloomers) underneath
e.
i. Feminists met here and created a Declaration of Sentiments (in the spirit of the Declaration of Independence). It declared that “all men and women are created equal”
ii. One resolution demanded the right to vote
iii. This meeting launched the modern women’s rights movement
f. End Result of the Women’s Reform Movement Until the Civil War
i. The women’s rights crusade was overshadowed by anti-slavery people
ii. Any white male (even an idiot) over the age of 21 could vote, but women couldn’t (until 1920)
iii. Women were gradually being admitted to colleges and some States were permitting wives to own property after marriage
IX. Wilderness Utopias
a. Communistic Communities
i. Created because of the utopian spirit in this era
ii. 40 of these were set up
b. Harmony
i. 1825 – Robert Own –
1. 1,000
people in Harmony,
2. The colony attracted radicals, people who didn’t like to work, and other scoundrels
c. Brook Farm
i. 1841 –
1. 20,000
people in
2. Committed to transcendentalism
3. Failed after a new building caught fire and they went into debt
d.
i. 1848 –
1.
2. Practiced free love (partners should be shared), birth control (abstaining), selective mating (people were told to mate to produce superior offspring without marriage)
3. Lasted for 30 years; survived by making steel traps & manufacture of silver tableware; ended because of public outrage of sexual practices
e. Shakers
i. 1770s – Mother Ann Lee –
1. 6,000 people
2. Religious community
3. Customs prevented marriage and sexual relations, so they went out of existence by 1940
f. Why Did They All Fail?
i. When in competition with democratic free enterprise and free land, all of them failed
X. The Dawn of Scientific Achievement
a. Scientific Achievements
i.
Most borrowed from Europe (
ii. Professor Louis Agassiz
1.
2. Carried snakes in his pockets
3. Insisted on original research and deplored memorization (which was the prevailing method of learning at the time)
iii. Professor Asa Gray
1.
2. Published over 350 books, monographs, and papers on botany (set new standards for clarity and interest)
b. John J. Audubon
i. Painted wildfowl in their natural habitat
ii. Birds of America was popular
iii. Audubon Society (for protection of birds) was named after him
iv. He had shot birds for sport as a youngster
c. Medicine
i. Conditions –
1. Very primitive
2. Prescribed medicines were often one dose for people, two for horses
3. Tooth extraction was done by the village blacksmith sometimes. Decayed or ulcerated teeth was common
4. People were strapped down for surgeries and given a drink
5. Smallpox was still dreaded
6. Yellow fever epidemic in 1793 in Philly took 1,000 lives
7. Life expectancy was short – 40 years (white; less for blacks)
ii. Why Were People Sick?
1. Improper diet
2. Hurried eating
3. Perspiring and cooling off too rapidly
4. Ignorance of germs and sanitation
iii. Remedies
1. Bleeding was a common cure
2. Sylvester Graham – Fad diets were popular; his included whole-wheat bread & crackers
3. Rubbing tumors with dead toads
4. Use of medicine by doctors was often harmful
5. Doctors successfully employed laughing gas and ether as anesthetics
XI. Artistic Achievements
a. Public Buildings
i. Followed Greek and Roman lines
ii. Greek revival came between 1820-1850, when the Greeks were trying to gain independence from the Turks
iii. Midcentury – Gothic forms became popular (pointed arches and large windows)
iv.
b. Thomas Jefferson
i. Best American architect of his generation
ii.
Brought a classical design to his home –
iii.
Quadrangle was used at the
c. Painting
i.
Suffered early on from absence of leisure and from a
lack of a wealthy class to sit for portraits/pay for them. Americans went to
ii. Suffered from the Puritan prejudice that art was a sinful waste of time and obscene (like theater)
d. Famous Painters
i. Gilbert Stuart (RI) –
1. Produced
several portraits of
ii. Charles Willson Peale (MD) –
1. Painted
60 portraits of
2. Developed 3-D paintings
3. Founded
the PA
e. Music
i. Puritans had frowned upon nonreligious singing
ii. Now, music was becoming more popular (especially upbeat, rhythmic tunes)
iii. Minstrel show –
1. White actors with blackened faces
iv.
“
1. Confederate battle hymn (was written by an Ohioan)
v. Stephen C. Foster (PA) –
1. First
professional songwriter from
2. Wrote
a. “Oh! Susanna”
b. “Camptown Races”
c. “Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair”
3. Many of his songs were written for minstrel shows
XII. The Blossoming of a National Literature
a. Early Literature
i. Americans were too busy to have leisure time
ii.
Much reading was imported or plagiarized from
iii. Many early readings were practical:
1. The Federalist – Hamilton, Jay,
2. Common Sense – Thomas Paine
3. Autobiography – Benjamin Franklin
b. Wave of American Literature
i. Received a boost from the nationalism that resulted after the War of 1812
ii. Older areas in the east were profitable enough to allow some people to have time to read
c.
i. Was the first American to win international recognition as a literary figure
ii.
Published Knickerbocker’s
History of New York in 1809 about the Dutch (Knickerbockers – Native
inhabitants of
iii. The Sketch Book in 1819-20 –
1. Rip Van Winkle – a man who falls asleep in the woods for 20 years
2. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow – a schoolteacher who encounters a headless horseman
iv. History of Christopher Columbus
d. James Fenimore Cooper (NY)
i. First novelist
ii. 1821 – The Spy – Tale about the American Revolution
iii. The Last of the Mohicans – About the conflict between nature unspoiled and developing the land in the name of progress
iv.
His tales were widely read in
e. William Cullen Bryant (NY)
i.
Wrote “Thanatopsis” in 1817,
the first high-quality poem produced in the
ii. Later became a journalist and campaigned for free speech, free trade, the rights of workers, and abolition of slavery
XIII. Transcendentalism
a. What Is It?
i. Rejected the theory, derived from John Locke, that all knowledge comes to the mind through the senses. Truth “transcends” the senses: it cannot be found by observation alone. Every person possesses an inner light that can illuminate the highest truth and put him/her in direct touch with God
b. How Did It Begin?
i. Offshoot of the literary movement
ii. Liberalizing of the strict, harsh, Puritan theology
iii. German and Asian romantic philosophers
c. What Were the Main Beliefs?
i. Individualism in all matters (religion and social)
ii. Commitment to self-reliance, self-culture, and self-discipline
iii. Praised the worth (dignity) of the individual, no matter what color
d. Ralph Waldo Emerson
i. Was a Unitarian minister
ii. Was a lyceum lecturer
iii. Was a poet and philosopher
iv. Stressed self-reliance, self-improvement, self-confidence, optimism, and freedom
v. Was an outspoken critic of slavery
e. Henry David Thoreau
i. Emerson’s close associate
ii. Was a poet and nonconformist (someone who doesn’t believe in the normal church teachings)
iii. Condemned governments that supported slavery
iv.
Wrote Walden: Or
Life in the Woods (1854) – record of Thoreau’s two years of simple
existence in a hut that he build on the edge of Walden Pond, near
v. Believed that he should reduce his bodily wants so as to gain time for a pursuit of truth through study and meditation
vi.
His writings later encouraged Gandhi to resist British
rule in
f. Walt Whitman
i.
Wrote Leaves of
Grass in 1855 – dispensed with titles, stanzas, and rhymes. Handled sex with shocking frankness and his
book was banned in
ii.
Eventually, his book became popular in both
iii.
Was the “Poet Laureate of Democracy” – green foliage
used to make a crown in Ancient Greece and
XIV. Glowing Literary Lights
a. Many of these writer believed in human goodness and social progress (optimistic times)
b. Henry
i.
Professor from
ii.
One of the most popular poets from
iii. Famous poems:
1. Evangeline
2. The Song of Hiawatha
3. The Courtship of Miles Standish
iv.
Popular in
c. John Greenleaf Whittier
i. Poet laureate of the antislavery crusade
ii. Poems were against inhumanity and influenced social action
d. James Russell Lowell
i. Succeeded Longfellow at Harvard
ii.
Was one of the best poets in
iii. Was a political satirist
iv. Criticized the Polk administration for alleged slavery-expansion plans
e. Oliver Wendell Holmes
i.
Professor at
ii. Was a nonconformist and another popular poet
f. Louisa May Alcott
i. Popular female writer
ii. Wrote Little Women in 1868
iii. Wrote books to support her mother and sister
g. Emily Dickinson
i. Famous female poet
ii. Explored universal themes of nature, love, death, and immortality
iii. Refused to publish any of her poems during her lifetime
iv. After her death, 2,000 of them were found and printed
h. William Gilmore Simms
i. Wrote 82 books
ii. Themes dealt with the southern frontier in colonial days and with the South during the Revolutionary War
XV. Literary Individualists and Dissenters
a. Some writers were fascinated with bad side of human nature
b. Edgar Allen Poe
i. Orphaned at an early age
ii. Suffered from poverty and debt
iii. Wife had tuberculosis
iv. Was an alcoholic
v. Tried to commit suicide
vi. Gifted and popular poet/short story writer
1. Wrote “The Raven”
vii. Wrote one of the first detective novels
viii. Was fascinated with the ghostly. He reflected a morbid character at odds with the usually optimistic tone of American culture
c. Nathaniel Hawthorne
i.
Grew up in
ii. 1850 – The Scarlet Letter- about the Puritan practice of forcing an adulterer to wear a scarlet “A” on her clothing. Chronicles the psychological effects of sin on the guilty heroine and her secret lover (the father of her baby) – a minister in Puritan Boston
d. Herman Melville
i. Orphaned and not well educated
ii. Served 18 years on a whaling ship
iii. 1851 – Moby Dick – Allegory (deeper meaning underlies the superficial meaning) of good and evil. Conflict between a whaling captain, Ahab, and a giant white whale named Moby Dick. Captain Ahab, having lost a leg to the whale, lives only for revenge. His pursuit finally ends when Moby Dick rams and sinks Ahab’s ship, leaving only one survivor
iv. It was not a popular book because it was an optimistic time and his book wasn’t upbeat. It wasn’t popular until the 20th century, many years after his death
XVI. Portrayers of the Past
a. George Bancroft
i. Secretary of Navy
ii.
Helped found the
iii. Received the title “Father of American History”
iv.
Published a patriotic history of the
b. William Prescott
i.
Published accounts of the conquest of
c. Francis Parkman
i. Eyes were so bad that he wrote in darkness with the aid of a guiding machine
ii.
Chronicled the struggle between
d. Why Were Most Historians New Englanders?
i.
Because the
ii. Many writers were abolitionists and view the slavery-cursed South unsympathetically
iii. This view of history dominated the history books until the end of the 19th century, when regional biasness was put aside