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The Ferment of Reform and Culture. We [Americans] will walk on our own feet; We will work with our own hands; We will speak our own minds. Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The American Scholar,” 1837 Chapter 15 pp. 320-326.
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The Ferment of Reform and Culture We [Americans] will walk on our own feet; We will work with our own hands; We will speak our own minds. Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The American Scholar,” 1837 Chapter 15 pp. 320-326
A third revolution accompanied the reformation of American politics and the transformation of the American economy in the mid-nineteenth century – a moral and religious revival. Major goals were to make ordinary American more “upstanding”, God-fearing, and literate. Certain reformers promoted: Better public schooling Rights for women Better medicine Polygamy!? Celibacy Rule by prophets Guidance by spirits Societies were formed against alcohol, tobacco, profanity, and even the transit of mail on the Sabbath! The Second Great Awakening
“Camp Meetings” helped spread these ideas to the masses. • Church membership boosted, despite the regression of many of the “saved” slipping back into their formal sinful ways shortly after converting. • Easterners went West to Christianize Indians, • Methodists and Baptists stressed personal conversion and democracy in church affairs. • “Fightin” Peter Cartwright, known on the frontier as “the Kentucky boy” – was the best known of the “circuit riders”, or traveling preachers. • Charles Grandison Finney– the greatest revival preacher who led massive revivals in NY – believed that a perfect Christian kingdom on earth COULD be obtained helped by the abolition of slavery and the prohibition of alcohol.
Church attendance was still quite regular in 1850 (3/4 of population attended). However, the religion of these days was definitely different than Puritan times. Deism helped inspire an important spin-off from the more severe Puritanism of the past and advocated things such as: -Reason over revelation -rejecting original sin of man -denying Christ’s divinity -believed in a supreme being that created the universe and endowed human beings with a capacity for moral behavior. Unitarians believed God existed in only 1 person, not in the orthodox trinity stressed goodness of human nature believed in free will and salvation through good works pictured God as a loving father appealed to intellectuals with rationalism and optimism Reviving Religion
Interestingly, the revival furthered fragmentation of religious faiths and actually widened the lines between classes and regions. New York, with its Puritans, preached “hellfire” and was known as the “Burned-Over District” Millerites ( 7th Day Adventists) – predicted Christ to return to earth on Oct 22, 1844. When this prophesy failed to materialize, the movement lost credibility – yet still survives to this day. A key feature of the Second Great Awakening was the feminization of religion, in terms of both church membership and theology. Middle-class women, the wives and daughters of businessmen, were the first and most fervent enthusiasts of religious revivalism. They made up the majority of new church members. The Second Great Awakening widened lines between classes and regions (like the 1st Great Awakening) Conservatives were made up of: propertied Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Unitarians The “less-learned” of the South and West (frontier areas) were usually Methodists or Baptists. Religion further split with the issue of slavery (i.e. the Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians split – North from South) Denominational Diversity
A Desert Zion in • The Mormon religion was founded by Joseph Smith, (1830) who claimed to have found golden tablets in NY with the Book of Mormon inscribed on them. • From there he founded the Mormon or Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. • Antagonism toward Mormons emerged due to their polygamy, drilling militia, and the fact they voted as a unit. • Smith was killed, but was succeeded by Brigham Young, who led followers to Utah and established Salt Lake City. • They grew quickly through natural birthrate and immigration from Europe. • The issue of polygamy prevented Utah’s entrance to the U.S. until the church officially denounced it in 1896.
Free Schools for a Free People • The idea of tax-supported, compulsory (mandatory), primary schools was originally opposed as simply a hand-out to the poor. • Gradually, however, support rose for compulsory education because of the realization that the uneducated might grow up to be “rabble” with voting rights. • Thus, tax-supported schools were chiefly available to educate the children of the poor. • Free public education triumphed along with the voting power of the common (white) man in the Jackson election of 1828. • The teachers were largely ill-taught and ill-trained, however. • Horace Mann fought for better schools and is the “Father of Public Education” • School was too expensive for many communities, and blacks were mostly left out from education. • Other important educators - Noah Webster (whose dictionary helped to standardize the American language); William H. McGuffey — McGuffey’s Readers)
Higher Goals for Higher Learning • The 2nd Great Awakening led to the building of small schools in the South and the West (mainly for pride since they were often ill-equipped) • the curriculum focused mainly on the classics, just as the original Ivy League schools of the North -Latin, Greek, Math, moral philosophy • The 1st state-supported universities actually were founded in the South. -The first was founded in the Tar Heel State, the Univ. of North Carolina, in 1795. -But perhaps the most notable was Thomas Jefferson’s University of Virginia (est. 1819), because of its modern vision of independence from religion or politics and emphasis on modern studies over classical ones.
Women were thought to become corrupted if “overly- educated” and were therefore generally excluded from higher education. A formal education was thought to potentially injure the feminine brain, undermine her health and render her unfit for marriage! • However, women’s schools at the secondary level began to attain some respectability in the 1820s, thanks in part to the dedicated work of Emma Willard who established Troy Female Seminary in New York 1821. • Other women’s secondary schools gradually opened as well, most notably Oberlin College in Ohio (1837) because it also admitted blacks! Something truly unheard of in the South. Oberlin was the first coeducational institution of higher learning in the U.S. Adults who craved more learning satisfied their thirst for knowledge through libraries, lyceums, and now ever-popular magazines, which began flourishing at the time.
