Ch.12 Antebellum Culture And Reform

1. Ch.12 Antebellum Culture And Reform

2. Reform Outline • Reform movements during Jacksonian era until the Civil War. • Period before the Civil War is known as the antebellum period. • Major reforms include free public schools, improved treatment for mentally ill, temperance movements, equality for women, and abolishing slavery.

3. Religious Reform The Second Great Awakening • Reaction to Rationalism (belief in human reasoning) • Preach in easy to understand sermon • Individual responsibility for salvation

4. Examples of Religious Reform • Revivalism in New York- Presbyterian minister: Charles G. Finney. Appealed to emotions instead of rational (damnation) -Saved through faith and hard work • Baptists and Methodists- Southern preachers would travel and preach outdoor revival sermons. By 1850, Baptist and Methodist = Largest Protestant denomination in the US. • Millennialism- William Miller predicted world was going to end and Jesus was coming back. Followers became known as Millerites or (Seventh-Day Adventists)

5. Example of Reform cont… • Mormons- Church of Latter-Day Saints • Founded by Joseph Smith • Book of Mormon • Moved to Illinois but Smith was murdered. • Brigham Young took their group to Utah to flea persecution.

6. Culture: Ideas, the Arts, and Literature • Transcendentalists- Discovery of one’s inner self and looking for the essence of God in nature. • Challenged capitalism • Challenged Established churches

7. Transcendentalists • Ralph Waldo Emerson -Spoke on making our own American culture -Argued for- Self-reliance, independent thinking, spiritual matters over material, opposed slavery. • Henry David Thoreau- Two- year experiment in the woods. Wrote the book Walden. -Essay “On Civil Disobedience” – Non-violent protest.

8. Brook Farm (Vision of Utopia) • Attempt to live out transcendentalism • George Ripley (Protestant minister) • Experiment at Brook Farm in Massachusetts. • Many writers came to the farm for artistic creativity and schooling

9. Communal Experiments People bought into removal from society in order to reach utopia. • Shakers- Religious community, separated men and women, had trouble recruiting people to join. • New Harmony- Secular experiment in New Harmony Indiana. Robert Owen wanted to start a utopian socialist society. Experiment failed • Oneida community- John Humphrey Noyes -Started a community in Oneida, New York. -Pursued social and economic equality and shared land and even marriage partners. “Free love” -Redefined gender roles • Fourier Phalanxes- Charles Fourier- share living arrangements in a community known as Fourier Phalanxes. Died out.

10. Reforming Society Temperance 1820- 5 gallons of hard liquor per person. -American Temperance Society- Morally wrong to drink. -Convinced most of society to abstain from liquor -Sales tax put on liquor -Germans and Irish protest the movement -Maine made the sale or manufacturing of liquor illegal.

11. Movement for public asylums • Mental Hospitals- Provide hospitals for mentally ill instead of jails. • Schools for blind and deaf persons- Benevolent Empire • Prisons- Replacing jails and lock-ups, tried to implement structure and discipline.

12. Public Education • Free common schools- Horace Mann led the charge for free public schools. Attendance requirement, Longer school year, and increased teacher preparation. • Moral Education- William McGuffey, led the push for instruction of principles and morality in schools. • Higher Education- Second Great Awakening pushed the growth of private higher education.

13. Women’s Rights Movement • Margaret Fuller- Redefined gender roles • Seneca Fall Convention (1848)- Feminists met at Seneca Falls, New York. • Issued a document called “Declaration of Sentiments” • “Declared all men and women were created equal.” • Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony led a campaign for equal voting, legal, and property rights for women.

14. Antislavery Movement Gradual abolitionist & Radical abolitionist • American Colonization Society -Gradual abolition -Compensate slave owners for slaves -Transport freed slaves back to Africa. Didn’t work because of how fast the slave population increased. *ACS fails and antislavery movement almost ceases

15. American Antislavery Society • American Antislavery Society- William Lloyd Garrison- Published an abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator • View slavery from the perspective of the black man not the white • Immediate abolition and no compensation for slave owners.

16. Liberty Party • Influenced by Garrison • Less radical and more focused on politics • James Birney ran for president in 1840 and championed abolition for slaves.

17. Abolitionism • How were free black viewed in the North??? • Black abolitionists- Frederick Douglass spoke first hand on the brutality and degradation of slavery. Started an antislavery journal The North Star • Harriet Tubman, David Ruggles, Sojourner Truth, helped fugitive slaves escape to free territory in the North. • Violent abolitionism- David Walker and Henry Highland Garnet argued slaves should be able to rise up and revolt.

18. Harriet Beecher Stowe • Wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin • Published into a book in 1852. • Preached the message of abolitionism • Attacked the emotions of the reader • Very popular in the north.

19. Amistad Case • Abolitionist first argued morality against slavery • Turned to the legal system • Amistad Case- Slave ship going to Cuba took over their ship and were caught by the U.S. • Supreme Court declared Africans free in 1841 and paid for them to go back to Africa.

20. Phrenology • Serious Cholera breakouts • Doctors had few theories as to why!!! • Turn to phrenology- Shape of your skull was an indicator of your intelligence.

21. Medical Breakthroughs • Vaccines against small pox- Edward Jenner • Anesthetics- From a dentist William Morton • Oliver Wendell Holmes proposed that disease spread from person to person. • IgnazSemmelweis concurred.