Abolition

1. Abolition The movement to end slavery

2. Abolitionist A person who supported abolition, or the ending of slavery

3. Asylum An institution for the care of people, especially those with physical or mental impairments, who require organized supervision or assistance.

4. Declaration of Sentiments A formal statement of injustices suffered by women, written at the Seneca Falls Convention.

5. Dorothea Dix A reformer from Boston who took up the cause of prison and mental health reform.

6. Elizabeth Cady Stanton An American social activist, abolitionist, and leading figure of the early women's rights movement.

7. Frederick Douglass An abolitionist who was born to a white father and African-American mother, he spoke out about his experiences as a slave.

8. Harriet Tubman Harriet Tubman was an African-American abolitionist, born into slavery. Tubman escaped and rescued more than 300 slavesusing the network of safe houses known as the Underground Railroad.

9. Horace Mann A reformer from Massachusetts who took up the cause of public education, he believed education to be the “the great equalizer,” became Massachusetts state supervisor of education, and convinced Massachusetts voters to pay taxes to build better schools, provide teachers with higher salaries, and establish special training schools for teachers.

10. Labor Union A group of workers who band together to seek better working conditions.

11. Reform To make changes in order to bring about improvement, end abuses, or correct injustices.

12. Repeal To cancel.

13. Revival A meeting to reawaken religious faith.

14. Second Great Awakening The revival of religious faith from 1800’s to the 1840’s.

15. Seneca Falls Convention The gathering, in Seneca Falls N.Y. of supporters of women's rights in July of 1848 that launched the movement for women’s right to vote.

16. Sentiments Beliefs or convictions.

17. Sojourner of Truth An abolitionist who escaped slavery and went to live with Quakers who set her free. She drew large crowds while speaking out against slavery in the North.

18. Strike To stop work to demand better working conditions.

19. Sufferage The right to vote.

20. Temperance Movement A campaign to stop the drinking of alcohol led by some churches in the early 1800’s

21. Transcendentalism A philosophy emphasizing that people should transcend, or go beyond, logical thinking to reach true understanding, with the help of emotions and intuition.

22. Underground Railroad A series of escape routes used by slaves escaping the south.

23. Reforming American Society • The Second Great Awakening was a renewal of religious faith in the 1790’s to the 1850’s.

24. Second Great Awakening • Revivalist preachers said “anyone could choose salvation!” • It was also preached that “all sin consisted of selfishness” and that religious faith led people to help others. • These teachings led Americans believing that they could act to make things better. • Such teachings and beliefs awakened a spirit of reform.

25. Second Great Awakening • The Second Great Awakening led to several social reforms in America. Temperance Education The Second Great Awakening Prison and Mental Health Women’s Rights Abolition

26. The Temperance Movement • Heavy drinking was common in the early 1800’s • Some workers would spend most of their wages on alcohol, leaving their families without enough money to live on. • Led by some churches and women. • A campaign to stop the drinking of alcohol.

27. The Temperance Movement • Some temperance workers handed out pamphlets urging people to quit drinking • Others wrote and produced dramas like The Drunkard, to dramatize the evils of alcohol • Businesses also supported the temperance movement because business owners wanted workers who could keep schedules and run machines.

28. The Temperance Movement • Some temperance speakers traveled widely, asking people to sign a pledge to give up alcohol. • By 1838 over 1 million people had signed temperance pledges.

29. The Temperance Movement • In 1851 Maine banned the sale of liquor. • By 1855, thirteen other states passed similar laws banning alcohol. • Many opposed temperance laws and most were repealed. • However, the temperance movement survived well into the 20th century and led to the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution starting prohibition.

30. The Education Movement • School for children in the early to mid 1800’s was limited, most went to school only 10 weeks a year. • Most worked on the family farms. • Some churches had establish a few schools for their congregations, but very few public schools existed. • The wealthy sent their kids to private schools or hired tutors for their children.

31. The Education Movement • On the frontier 60 kids of all ages might attend a part-time, one room school house. • Most children did not attend school at all. • In the rapidly urbanizing cities some unschooled children would steal, destroy property, and set fires. • This need for education caused some cities, like New York to set up public schools.

32. The Education Movement • In 1837 Massachusetts established the first state board of education in the United States. • This board was headed by Horace Mann. • Mann spoke to the people of Massachusetts for the establishment of public schools. • “Education creates or develops new treasures – treasures never possessed or dreamed of by any one.”

33. The Education Movement • The citizens of Massachusetts responded and voted to pay taxes to build better schools, provide teachers with higher salaries, and establish special training schools for teachers.

34. The Education Movement • By the 1850’s most northern states followed Massachusetts and established public schools. • Most states however, did not offer public education to everyone, most were for white boys. • Majority of high schools and colleges did not admit girls, nor African Americans. • In fact state passed laws preventing African Americans from attending public schools.

35. The Education Movement • Education for girls did advance, in 1837 Oberlin College, in Ohio, became the first college to admit women. • By 1860’s when states opened the 1st public universities, most admitted men and women. • African Americans did not have many opportunities. • In fact it was illegal in the south to teach enslaved people to read. • Those enslaved African Americans who tried to learn were severely beaten.

36. The Education Movement • In 1833 Prudence Crandall, admitted a black student to a Connecticut girls school. • The white parents took their children out of the school.

37. The Education Movement • Crandall responded by opening their own African American school for girls and angry white people threw rocks at the school and had Crandall jailed. • Crandall was forced to close her school in 1834.

38. The Education Movement • Few colleges accepted African American. • Those that did only accepted one or two at a time. • Alexander Twilight was the first African American to earn a college degree in 1823 from Middlebury College in Vermont.

39. The Labor Movement • Business owners were trying to improve workers habits, the temperance movement, the workers were calling for better working conditions. • Life in America’s factories was boring, noisy and unsafe. • The young women of the Lowell Mills started a labor union.

40. The Labor Movement • A labor union is a group of workers who band together to seek better working conditions. • In 1836 the owners of the Lowell Mills raised the rent of the company-owned boarding houses. • About 1,500 women of the Lowell Mills went on strike.

41. The Labor Movement • Some workers went on strike to demand shorter hours or higher wages. • In 1835 and 1836 over 140 strikes had taken place in the United States.

42. The Labor Movement • The Panic of 1837 brought hard times to America. • Jobs became scarce, workers were afraid to cause trouble at work, so the labor movement fell apart. • However, some union goals were achieved, in 1840 President Martin van Buren ordered 10 hour work days for government workers.

43. Prison and Mental Health Movement • In 1841, Dorothea Dix agreed to teach Sunday school in a Boston women’s jail. • She was horrified to find that many prisoners were bound in chains and that children accused of minor thefts were jailed with adult criminals.

44. Prison and Mental Health Movement • While visiting other prisons she learned some were jailed simply because they were mentally ill, and the mentally ill did not receive treatment for their illnesses. Instead, they were chained and beaten. • Most in debtors prisons owed less than $20, and could not earn money while in prison so they were there for years.

45. Prison and Mental Health Movement • At the time there was only one private asylum in Massachusetts at the time and it was overcrowded with sick wealthy people. • After two years of touring Massachusetts prisons Dix reported her findings to the Massachusetts state legislature. • She reported “I come as the advocate of helpless, forgotten, insane… men and women, I proceed… to call your attention to the present state of insane persons, confined… in cages, closets, cellars, stall, pens! Chained naked, beaten with rods, and lashed into obedience!”

46. Prison and Mental Health Movement • Shocked by Dix’s report, Massachusetts lawmakers voted to create public asylums for the mentally ill. • Later Dix traveled the United States on behalf of the Mentally ill. • Her efforts led to 32 new hospitals being built. • By the time of her death in 1887 Dix’s accomplishments were great: • States no longer put debtors in prisons. • A special justice system was created for children. • Many states outlawed cruel punishments. • The mentally ill would start recieveing the treatment they needed.

47. The Abolitionist Movement • By 1776 the Quakers stopped owning slaves. • 1792 every state north of Virginia had anti-slavery societies. • By 1804 most northern states outlawed slavery. • In 1808 Congress banned the importation of African slave into the United States.

48. The Abolitionist Movement • Once importation of slaves was made illegal, Northern shipping companies no longer had interest in slavery and no longer sent slave ships to Africa.

49. The Abolitionist Movement • However, the northern textile mills still needed and wanted the cheap cotton that the slave labor of the south provided. • Even with the northern states banning slavery in their states by 1804, many northerners still accepted slavery.

50. The Abolitionist Movement • In 1829 a free African American in Boston, David Walker, printed a pamphlet Appeal …to the Color Citizens of the World. • This pamphlet urged slaves to revolt. • After this pamphlet made its way into the south, Walker mysteriously died after refusing to flee for his life.