Chapter 8: A push for reform

1. Chapter 8: A push for reform The Big Picture: The religious revival called the Second Great Awakening set off one of the great periods of social reform in American history. Inspired to do good works, the reformers changed the face of America.

2. Chapter 8 section 1: new movements in America Main Idea: A revival in religion in the early 1800s helped lead to an era of reform.

3. Religion Sparks Reform The Second Great Awakening The Temperance Movement • 1820s and 1830s revival preachers traveled across America calling them back to Christianity • Preachers like Charles Grandison Finney had thousands embrace his message • By 1850, twice as many Americans attended church than when Washington was president • People urged to live well and make society better in service to God • Called the Reform Era • Movement to reduce to use of alcoholic beverages (temperance means moderation) • Reformers wrote books, plays, and songs about the evils of alcohol • Claimed it led to poverty, sickness, abuse and the break-up of families • 12 states outlaw alcohol

4. Reforming Education Common Schools & McGuffey Horace Mann • Before 1840, public schools (called common schools) were poor and poorly attended • People began to push for better public schools • William McGuffey wrote a series of books designed to teach students both reading skills and morals • Over 100 million books were sold in the middle and late 1800s • Was Secretary of Education in MA • Started state-funded schools • Compulsory attendance • Created normal schools to train teachers • Other states followed his example, and by 1860 60% of white children attended public school nation-wide

5. Reforming Prisons • Dorethea Dixcampaigned for humane treatment of both prisoners and the mentally ill • Mentally ill were often put in crowded, unsanitary prisons and were often abused • Starting in MA, states began building mental health institutions to house mentally ill citizens

6. Transcendentalism and Utopianism • Transcendentalist movement: the belief that knowledge is found by observation, reason, intuition and personal spiritual experiences • Ralph Waldo Emerson-leader of the movement; wrote that people should be self reliant and trust their intuition • Henry David Thoreau-tried self-reliance through living alone at Walden Pond and living simply • He also introduced the idea of civil disobedience:disobeying the government when you think they are wrong (went to prison for not paying taxes that would help fight a war he disagreed with) • Ideas are later adopted by Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. • Some reformers wanted to create brand-new, perfect societies (called utopias) • 90 communities were founded in the early 1800s • Most famous were New Harmony and Brook Farm • Most successful were the Shakers • All were small and short lived (conflict among members)

7. Chapter 8 section 2: early immigration and urban reform Main Idea: A wave of Irish and German immigrants entered the United States during a period of urbanization and reform.

8. Irish and German Immigrants Push and Pull Factors Irish and Germans • Pushes- reasons immigrants leave their home country • Most common are poverty, disease, war/persecution • Pulls- reasons immigrants come to a new country • Most common are freedom and economic opportunity (jobs) • 1845-1849: blight (disease) destroys the potato crop in Ireland • By 1850 more than a million die in the Great Irish Famine • More than 2 million leave Ireland, 1.5 million come to the US • Germans came to the US to escape poverty, religious persecution, and unrest (about 1.5 million came to the US)

9. The Lives of Immigrants Irish versus Germans Nativism and the Know-Nothings • Irish faced the most hostility • They were resented for their numbers, their poverty, and their religion (Catholic) • They also tended to stay together within cities • By contrast, Germans tended to be Protestant and were middle class • They tended to spread out across the country (settled in the Midwest) • As more immigrants entered the US nativism increased (fear/hostility towards immigrants) • Many viewed them as a threat to their way of life • Anti-immigrant sentiment led to the creation of the Know-Nothings • They later reformed as the American Party that ran on an anti-immigration platform • They had more than a million members by 1850 and ran a presidential candidate in 1856

10. Reform, Urbanization, and Industrialization Urbanization and Reform Industrialization and Reform • Urbanization- rapid growth of cities • Many were immigrants looking for work • Many city dwellers lived in tenements: poorly constructed, crowded apartment buildings • Tenements had problems with sanitation, disease, and crime • Some reformers tried to help tenement dwellers, but not much progress was made • Industrialization: making thing in factories • From 1820 to 1850, the percentage of factory workers rose from 5% to 30% • Led to a rise in the urban working class, most of which were poor and uneducated • Workers began to organize in groups to demand better pay and working conditions, most of these efforts failed

11. Chapter 8 section 3: Women and Reform Main Idea: After leading reform movements to help others, some American women began to work on behalf of themselves.

12. Limits on Women’s Lives • Women had legal, economic, and cultural limits in the 19th century • Legal: Women were not allowed to vote or hold office; the only legal contract they could enter into was marriage, but they were not usually allowed to divorce and the husband gained custody of the children if they did divorce • Economic: not allowed to own property; many women worked but they received low wages that technically belonged to their husband • Cultural: women were pressured to remain in the home taking care of children and household tasks; books and magazines praised women who stayed at home and obeyed their husbands (called the cult of domesticity)

13. Women in the Reform Era • Despite being excluded from most of public life, women did play an active role in the reform movement (saw it as an act of ‘mothering’ society) • Middle class women began forming reform societies in the 1830s and 1840s to promote social reforms like moral improvement and aid to the poor • Women like Catherine Beecher worked for better educational opportunities for boys and girls • Oberlin College: 1st American college to admit women (1833); 1837 Mount Holyoke: 1st women’s college • women also work in labor movements to win better pay and working conditions in factories • Women worked passionately in temperance reform because of the effects of alcohol use on families

14. The Seneca Falls Convention • Held in 1848 in Seneca Falls, NY; marks the beginning of the women’s movement • Women believed that having more political power would help them achieve the reforms they were working towards • Convention was organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott after they were not allowed to speak at an anti-slavery convention and were segregated from the men • 300 attended the meeting and drafted the Declaration of Sentiments; modeled after the Declaration of Independence, it listed abused men perpetrated against women and demanded equality and the right to vote (suffrage)

15. Chapter 8 section 4: fighting against slavery Main Idea: The movement to end slavery dominated the Reform Era.

16. The Lives of Enslaved African Americans Work Life Style • Slavery existed in every American colony and in the North until the 1840s • 1860: 4 million slaves in the South • Most lived on farms and plantations cultivating cotton • Slaves in cities were usually hired out as day laborers or in factories; the money went to the owner • Worked from sun-up to sun-down • Poorly fed, clothed, and sheltered • Abuse was common and families were frequently split apart • Major source of hope lay in their Christian religion and music • Focused on the Exodus story

17. The Antislavery Movement in the South Revolts The Underground Railroad • 1776-1860: over 200 slave uprisings, most short lived • 1830: Nat Turner’s Rebellion- most deadliest slave revolt in US history (killed dozens of white people before being captured • White people in the Virginia community killed 100 slaves unrelated to the revolt to prevent future actions • About 40,000 were able to escape to freedom in the North before 1860 • Underground Railroad: an informal system of escape where free blacks and sympathetic whites would aid runaway slaves as they traveled North • Quakers, a religious group that disagreed with slavery were very active in the movement • most famous ‘conductor’ was Harriett Tubman- led hundreds to freedom

18. The Abolition Movement Roots and Leaders Opposition • Second Great Awakening led many Northerners to believe that slavery was evil and should be abolished (ended) • This was the LARGEST reform movement of the reform era • William Lloyd Garrison: wanted immediate emancipation (not gradual); published the anti-slavery paper The Liberator • Grimke sisters: Southern white women opposed to slavery • Frederick Douglas: run-away slave who spoke against slavery; wrote an autobiography to answer critics who claimed he was too well educated and well spoken to have been a slave • Southerners, even those who did not own slaves, saw the abolition movement as an attack on Southern livelihood (money) and way of life • Some tried to use the Bible to justify slavery • Most claimed it was a economic necessity • By 1860 cotton comprised 55% of all US exports and Northern factories were dependent upon cheap Southern cotton • Not all Northerners were pro-abolition (feared job competition)