Antebellum Reform Movements

1. Antebellum Reform Movements Unit 5, Lesson 3

2. Essential Idea • The “Era of the Common Man” and the Second Great Awakening caused people to push for reforms.

3. Era of the “Common Man” • Event: • Era of the Common Man • Cause: • Starting in the 1820s, universal white male suffrage spread • Effects: • Andrew Jackson, a “common man,” was elected • Candidates had to campaign to appeal to common people • The common man gained more influence in government

4. Second Great Awakening • Event: • Second Great Awakening • Cause: • Americans were less religious, especially after the Enlightenment emphasized science and reason • Effect: • People looked to THEMSELVES to be saved, not church authority • Common people had more influence in their religion • Many wanted reforms to fix “sins” in society, especially slavery

5. Antebellum Reform • Combined Effect: • The country experienced a period of REFORM • The Era of the Common Man gave people more power in government • The Second Great Awakening gave people more power in religion • Combined, people felt empowered to use the GOVERNMENT to REFORM “sins” in society • Issues to Reform: • Treatment of mentally ill, prison conditions, education, abuse of alcohol, and slavery • Women, also wanting more power, began pushing for equal rights

6. Reforms: Mental Hospitals • Issue 1: • Mental hospitals • Reform: • Dorothea Dix—exposed inhumane treatment of the mentally ill • States created mental hospitals, not prisons, to give the mentally ill proper help

7. Reforms: Prisons • Issue 2: • Prisons • Reforms: • Prisoners were treated inhumanely were sometimes jailed just for being in debt • Prisons began focusing more rehabilitating prisoners and “debtors’ prison” was abolished

8. Reforms: Public Education • Issue 3: • Public education • Reforms: • Education was only affordable for the wealthy • Many believed the country could only survive if citizens were educated • Horace Mann—pushed for public, tax-supported schools with required attendance

9. Reforms: Temperance • Issue 4: • Alcohol abuse • Reforms: • Many saw alcohol abuse as the root of society’s problems • Temperance—moderation of alcohol use • The American Temperance Society convinced many to reduce alcohol use and some states banned the sale of liquor

11. The Women’s Rights Movement • Effect of Industrial Revolution: • Roles of men and women changed during industrialization • Men and women had “separate spheres” • Men’s Sphere: • Men left home to work in factories • Men were active outside the home in politics and reform

12. “True Womanhood” • Women’s Sphere: • Women stayed at home to care for the home and children • Women were not very active outside the home

13. Reform: Women’s Rights • Women and Reform: • Women saw taking care of society as an extension of taking care of the home • Women resented men giving them secondary roles in reform • Women, like men during the “Era of the Common Man,” wanted more power in government and society

14. Reform: Women’s Rights • Issue 5: • Women’s Rights • Events: • Seneca Falls Convention—started the organized women’s rights movement in the United States in 1848 • Declaration of Sentiments—declared men and women to be EQUAL • Elizabeth Cady Stanton—demanded women’s SUFFRAGE (right to vote) • Seneca Falls Convention • Impact: • The women’s rights movement was overshadowed by the biggest reform movement, abolitionism

15. Reform: Abolitionism • Issue 6: • Abolition of Slavery • Abolitionism: • The abolition of slavery was the biggest and most divisive issue of reform • Tension over the issue of slavery contributed to the Civil War