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Utopian Societies. utopia – an ideal society Brook Farm – Massachusetts the farm offered its members the chance to engage in intellectual activity while cooperatively running a farm Shakers – religious group Got their name from a ritual “shaking” dance that members performed
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Utopian Societies • utopia – an ideal society • Brook Farm – Massachusetts • the farm offered its members the chance to engage in intellectual activity while cooperatively running a farm • Shakers – religious group • Got their name from a ritual “shaking” dance that members performed • Did not believe in marrying or having children • the number of Americans who chose to live in utopian communities was relatively small • many more people attempted not to escape society, but to reform it
Reforming Society Chapter 8 Section 3
Reform Movements • Reform movements came from religion • Dorothea Dix began a movement for the mentally ill in more than a dozen states • Lyman Beecher said citizens more than government should take charge of reform • Benevolent societies spread religion & combated social problems. • Many women participated, partly because of religion. Several movements…
Temperance Movement • Said no vice caused more social problems than excessive drinking • Claimed men didn’t spend money on family necessities, abused their wives & children • Drinking was excessive in 1800s in W & E • Temperance=moderation • Groups became more active in 1800s and encouraged giving up liquor. Formed the American Temperance Union • Encouraged laws against sale of liquor, Maine
Prison Reform • Tried to encourage better facilities & tried to get inmates separated. • Belief in rehabilitating prisoners • Penitentiaries=places where individuals would work to achieve penitence
Educational Reform • Public education, public funded schools open to all citizens. People believed that the electorate should be well educated • Horace Mann, president of the MA Senate, 1837 pressed a bill for board of Education • MA became model for all N states, also passed first mandatory school attendance • Common school= elementary schools • N states came around quickly but rural areas more slowly • Southern reformer Calvin Wiley, Mann of NC • The rest of the South responded slowly, 1/3 white children by 1860
Women’s Education and the Women’ Movement • Women could not vote but did take advantage of new education opportunities • Emma Willbard, founded boarding school for girls that covered tradition subjects and also history, math, and literature • Mary Lyon, Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in MA first institution of higher learning for women only • Elizabeth Blackwell, first women to become a doctor in US or Europe founded Infirmary ofr Women and Children
Women’s Movement • Changes in how men and women worked • Division between home and workplace • Women were to tend the home sphere, raising children solemn Christian responsibility • “true womanhood”, Catherine Beecher • Some women felt women needed more political responsibility • Seneca Falls Convetion, Lucretia Mott & Elizabeth Cady Stanton • Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions, Expanded Declaration of Independence