Chapter 9: Working for Reform

1. Chapter 9: Working for Reform Section 1: Religious Zeal & New Communities Pages: 286-290

2. Religious Zeal & New Communities • THE SECOND GREAT AWAKENING: (286-287 • Rapid social changes transformed the United States at the beginning of the 1800s • In response, many Americans turned to religious faith for directions • Second Great Awakening – as early as the 1790s a renewed and passionate interest in religion, known as the Second Great Awakening, began to develop in towns in upstate New York • This evangelical movement quickly spread throughout New England, to Kentucky, Ohio, and beyond the frontier regions farther south and west

3. Religious Zeal & New Communities • THE SECOND GREAT AWAKENING: (286-287) • Huge crowds gathered at services during the Second Great Awakening. • They listened to thunderous sermons, sang hymns, and sought God’s help in reforming their lives. • Many participants in these large religious gatherings known as revivals, came away convinced of the possibility of attaining moral perfection, both for themselves and for society

4. Religious Zeal & New Communities • THE SECOND GREAT AWAKENING: (286-287) • Revival ministers expressed what many people felt at the time. This was a need for deep religious faith and an optimistic belief in an individual’s ability to achieve eternal salvation and to improve his or her life. • This optimism was fueled in part by changes in the Untied States such as economic growth and the expansion of democracy

5. Religious Zeal & New Communities • THE SECOND GREAT AWAKENING: (286-287) • This religious enthusiasm sparked changes in Protestant Congregations • The emotional, intensely personal sermons of evangelists during the Second Great Awakening appealed to many ordinary people • The revivalists’ promised that salvation could be attained by everyone who repented their sins also encouraged numerous religious converts • Denominations – religious groups

6. Religious Zeal & New Communities • THE SECOND GREAT AWAKENING: (286-287) • African Americans and white women participated widely in the Second Great Awakening. • Female converts outnumbered males 3 to 2 • Women often led prayer groups, established and taught in Sunday schools, and supported missionary societies • One Methodist, African American woman, Jarena Lee, traveled hundreds of miles to preach sermons to both black and white worshipers

7. Religious Zeal & New Communities • THE SECOND GREAT AWAKENING: (286-287) • African American men and women joined Baptists an Methodist churches in large numbers. They formed their own churches as well • In 1794 Richard Allen founded in Philadelphia one of the first African American churches in North America • He founded the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church. The African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church soon expanded and developed into it own denomination

8. Religious Zeal & New Communities • THE SECOND GREAT AWAKENING: (286-287) • In the South, the spread of revivalism among enslaved African Americans met with a mixed reaction among slaveholders. • Some slaveholders encouraged their slaves to convert to Christianity. Others, however, believed that Christianity might encourage the idea of equality an thus incite rebellion among slaves

9. Religious Zeal & New Communities • NEW RELIGIONS AND UTOPIAN COMMUNITIES: (287-289) • The optimism that inspired revivals also led men and women to establish entirely new religious groups. • Some founded UTOPIAS – communities designed to create a perfect society • More than 90 such communities sprang up in the United States between 1800 and 1850 • These communities experimented with new ways of organizing family life, property ownership, and work

10. Religious Zeal & New Communities • NEW RELIGIONS AND UTOPIAN COMMUNITIES: (287-289) • THE SHAKERS (288) • The United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing – or SHAKERS, as the group came to be known from their tendency to shake their bodies during worship – founded communities in the eastern United States. • Shakers first arrived in America from Great Britain in 1774, led by Ann Lee. • Ann Lee, known as Mother Ann, claimed to be the messiah who came to found a society free from sin

11. Religious Zeal & New Communities • NEW RELIGIONS AND UTOPIAN COMMUNITIES: (287-289) • THE MORMONS (288) • Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or Mormons, undertook one of the most enduring utopian ventures • Founder Joseph Smith claimed that divine assistance had enabled him to discover and translate buried gold plates that contained religious teachings • Published his translations in the Book of Mormon

12. Religious Zeal & New Communities • NEW RELIGIONS AND UTOPIAN COMMUNITIES: (287-289) • THE MORMONS (288) • The Mormons emphasized hard work and community, but some principles provoked strong opposition • Non-Mormons were particularly outraged by the Mormon practice of plural marriage, in which a man could be married to more than one woman at the same time • This opposition to Mormon practices often led to violence • Nevertheless, the Mormons endured. Under the leadership of Brigham Young, thousands of Smith’s followers crossed the Rocky Mountains. • They founded successful settlements in the Great Salt Lake valley, in territory that belonged to Mexico at that time

13. Religious Zeal & New Communities • TRANSCENDENTALISM: (290) • Transcendentalism – the belief that people can transcend, or rise above, material things in life to reach a higher level of understanding • Human beings could approach perfection as they acquired knowledge about God, themselves, and the universe • Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau were all Transcendentalists • Many transcendentalists began as Unitarians – members of a religious reform movement that originally areas among New England Protestants in the late 1700s • Unitarians rejected most Puritan beliefs such as predestination. They also believed people could become perfect

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