Instructional Focus Document Notes Grade 8/Social Studies

1. Instructional Focus Document NotesGrade 8/Social Studies UNIT: 10 TITLE: Reform and Culture Part 1: Reforms

2. Irish Immigrants • Many Irish who came to America after escaping the potato famine found themselves pushed into slums and working in low paying factory jobs or digging canals.

3. German Immigrants • German immigrants usually had enough money when they came to America. • They settled in towns of the mid-west like Milwaukee, St. Louis, and Cincinnati • There were German bakers, butchers, grocers. • Germans also contributed to American culture with the introduction of institutions like Gymnasiums and Kindergarten.

4. German Immigrants • A small minority of the German immigrants were Jewish

5. African Americans • Free African Americans in the North faced much discrimination. Any had trouble finding jobs • Despite these obstacles, many African Americans achieved notable success

6. African Americans • Free African Americans in the South were mostly descended from slaves. Slave owners did not like free African Americans living in the South, fearing it would set a bad example. May restrictions were placed on them in an effort to get them to move out of the South

7. Slave Codes • The lives of slaves in the South were determined by a set of strict slave codes and the practices of individual slave owners • Slave codes were enacted to prevent slaves from running away or trying to rebel • Slave codes prevented slaves from traveling and even made it a criminal offense to read and write

8. Slave Codes • Some of the slave codes were also meant to protect the slaves • The slave codes were supposed to protect the slaves from cases of extreme abuse • All slaves were expected to work all day long

9. Social Reform • Social reform is an organized attempt to improve any imperfections in society

10. 2nd Great Awakening • In the 1800s a Second Great Awakening swept the nation. Preachers held revivals and taught that individuals could save their souls by their own actions. The Second Great Awakening helped ignite the reform movements. It also heightened class and regional differences.

11. Social Reform • There were reforms in Prison, which led to better care of prisoners and the separation of Men and women’s prisons • There was also a call for better care of the disabled allowing for the opening of schools for the deaf and blind.

12. Temperance Movement • There were reforms in prisons, mental institutions, education, slavery, etc. • The Temperance movement was established to bring an end to the consumption of alcohol.

13. Temperance Movement • They believed that alcohol resulted in broken homes, dysfunctional families, child abuse and poverty. • Most members of the Temperance movement were women

14. Temperance Movement • Some critics of the Temperance movement countered with the argument that not all people abuse alcohol, and the banning of it would itself cause a loss of jobs and probably result in violence

15. Reforms in Education • In the early 1800s, there were very few public schools and most teachers were not trained • Horace Mann became head of the Massachusetts board of education and demanded more money for schools

16. Reforms in Education • Mann got legislators to bring in qualified teachers and raise the salary. • The school year was extended, also • Many states quickly followed Massachusetts’ example

17. Reforms in Education • Some attempts were made at opening schools for African Americans, but these attempts were often met with hostility. • Schools and teachers could also be targeted for attacks if they attempted to educate African Americans • Schools were also opened for children with disabilities

18. Labor Reforms • Labor reform movements were aimed at creating safer working conditions for workers • These movements also sought to raise minimum age laws, reduce child labor and helped give rise to labor unions.

19. Abolition Movement • In 1807, Congress banned the importation of slaves into the United States from Africa. • The call for complete abolition of slavery began to grow. (mostly in the North)

20. Abolition Movement • The American Colonization Society was established with the goal of ending slavery and starting a colony in Africa for freed slaves. The society founded the nation of Liberia in 1822. Most free African Americans chose not to leave their homes in the United States.

21. Abolition Movement • A growing number of Abolitionists wanted to end slavery completely in the United States. • Fredrick Douglass was the best known African American abolitionist

22. Abolition Movement • Douglass was a former slave who had escaped to his freedom in the North • He began to lecture across the United States on the evils of slavery • He spoke and wrote about his early life as a slave • He also published an anti slavery newspaper called the North Star

23. Abolition Movement • William Lloyd Garrison was an outspoken abolitionist who published the most influential newspaper called The Liberator. • Garrison also founded the Anti-Slavery Society

24. Equal Rights for Women • Women had few political rights in the early 1800s • Lucretia Mott (a Quaker) sought to gain equal treatment for women along with Elizabeth Cady Stanton

25. Equal Rights for Women • Sojourner Truth was a speaker on behalf of BOTH women’s rights AND abolitionism. • Sojourner Truth’s real name was Isabella Baumfree. She escaped slavery with her daughter and took up the cause for abolishment of slavery and equal rights for women.

26. Seneca Falls Convention • Stanton and Mott had wanted to join the Anti-Slavery movement, but women were not allowed to take an active role at the Anti-Slavery Convention • They decided then to take up the case for women’s rights • They organized the Seneca Falls Convention

27. Seneca Falls Convention • At the Seneca Falls Convention, they approved the Declaration of Sentiments which stated that women and men were equal • They wanted equality at work and the right to vote • This Convention marked the beginning of the Women’s Rights Movement

28. Seneca Falls Convention • Susan B Anthony was a tireless speaker on behalf of the Women’s Rights movement as well as a champion for women’s suffrage

29. American Writers and Painters • By the mid 1800s American artists began to develop their own style of painting • The Hudson River School Artists were a group of painters who focused on landscape paintings mainly of the Hudson River Valley

30. American Writers and Painters • Artists became renowned such as Thomas Cole who painted vivid landscapes of New York

31. Works of Thomas Cole

32. American Writers and Painters • John James Audubon was a French American ornithologist, naturalist and painter. He painted very detailed depictions of birds in their natural habitats. • His most famous work was “The Birds of North America”.

33. American Writers • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was a favorite poet of Americans. • He wrote such famous poems as “Paul Revere’s Ride” and “Song of Hiawatha”

34. American Writers • Walt Whitman, a transcendentalist author, published only one book called “Leaves of Grass” • He added to it over a period of 27 years • Walt Whitman was called the Father of American Free Verse

35. American Writers • Emily Dickinson saw only even of her poems published in her lifetime • Today she is considered one of the Nation’s greatest poets

36. American Writers • Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” was widely read and had great influence.

37. Transcendentalists • Transcendentalists were writers who valued emotion over reason. • They felt that people should transcend or go beyond human reason • Their focus was nature

38. Transcendentalists • Ralph Waldo Emerson was one of the leading Transcendentalists who stressed the importance of individualism

39. Transcendentalists • Henry David Thoreau believed that growing industry was ruining the Nation • In his best known work titled Walden he describes living alone in the woods

40. Transcendentalists • Thoreau also believed in civil disobedience in which he felt that people should have the right to disobey a law they feel is unjust • He practiced this when he refused to pay his taxes in protest to the Mexican War