Romanticism and Reform in Antebellum America

1. APUSH: Chapter 12 Antebellum Culture and Reform

2. ANTEBELLUM CULTURE AND REFORM (12-1) pp. 315-321 → The Romantic Impulse • American Painting • Literature • The Transcendentalists • The Defense of Nature • Redefining Gender Roles • The Mormons

3. AGE OF REFORM • Antebellum—1820 to 1860: • Romantic age • Reformers pointed the inequality in society • Industrialization vs. progress in human rights • Primarily a Northern movement • Southerner’s refused reforms to protect slavery. • Educated society throughnewspaper and lyceum meetings • Areas to reform: • Slavery • women’s rights • Industrialization • public schools • Male domination • temperance (alcohol) • War • prison reform • Formed utopian societies = collective ownership.

5. The Romantic Impulse • Elevate the nation’s culture • Liberate the nation’s culture • Independent from Europe • Express the nation’s special virtues • Romanticism → imported from Europe → liberate the human spirit

6. Thomas Cole, A View of the Mountain Pass Called the Notch of the White Mountains, 1839. Oil on canvas, 40 -3/16” x 61 -5/16”. (Courtesy of the National Gallery of Art / Andrew W. Mellon Fund)

7. Nationalism and Romanticism in American Painting • Evoke the wonders of the nation’s landscape • The “sublime” → awe, wonderment, even fear of the grandeur of nature • The Hudson River School → Frederic Church, Thomas Cole, Asher Durand

8. Asher Durand Thomas Cole Hudson River School

9. Literature and the Quest for Liberation • James Fenimore Cooper → the first great American novelist • The “Leatherstocking Tales” → The Last of the Mohicans → frontiersman’s experiences • Natty Bumpo • Celebration of the American spirit and landscape • Ideal of the independent individual w/natural inner goodness

10. Walt Whitman • Poet of American democracy • Leaves of Grass 1855 • Democracy, liberation of the individual, pleasures of the flesh and the spirit • See handout -

11. Herman Melville • Most important of his novels was Moby Dick 1851 • Considered by many to be the great American novel • The white whale • Captain Ahab → pride and revenge • Maniacal search for the whale that maimed him • Pride, arrogance, self destruction

12. Other works by Herman Melville – • Billy Budd → novella • Bartleby the Scrivener→ short story → “ I would prefer not to…” • Extra credit…

13. Edgar Allen Poe→ southerner → Baltimore → poetry and short stories → the Raven → The Cask of the Amlontillado, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Masque of the Red Death • Nathaniel Hawthorne → New England writer → puritan ancestry • The Scarlet Letter → Hester Pryne → sin and adultery • See handout - The Minister’s Black Veil

14. The Transcendentalists “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” Henry David Thoreau

15. Transcendentalism • “Liberation from understanding and the cultivation of reasoning” • “Transcend” the limits of intellect and allow the emotions, the SOUL, to create an original relationship with the Universe

16. Transcendentalist Thinking • Man must acknowledge a body of moral truths that were intuitive and must TRANSCEND more sensational proof: • The infinite benevolence of God. • The infinite benevolence of nature. • The divinity of man. • They instinctively rejected all secular authority and the authority of organized churches and the Scriptures, of law, or of conventions

17. Transcendentalism (European Romanticism) • Therefore, if man was divine, it would be wicked that he should be held in slavery, or his soul corrupted by superstition, or his mind clouded by ignorance!! • Thus, the role of the reformer was to restore man to that divinity which God had endowed them

18. The Transcendentalist Agenda • Give freedom to the slave • Give well-being to the poor and the miserable • Give learning to the ignorant • Give health to the sick • Give peace and justice to society

19. Ralph Waldo Emerson • Leader of group of intellectuals centered around Concord, Mass • Former Unitarian minister • Advocate of transcendentalism • Self fulfillment • Communion with nature • The Oversoul • Divinity of the individual • Cultural independence from Europe • The most important intellectual of his day

20. Thoreau and Civil Disobedience • Another leading Concord intellectual → author of Walden • “the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation..” • Resist conformity • Listen to your instincts • “Civil disobedience” → passive resistance → public refusal to obey unjust laws → influenced Gandhi and Martin Luther King

21. Transcendentalist Intellectuals/WritersConcord, MA Ralph Waldo Emerson Henry David Thoreau Nature(1832) Resistance to Civil Disobedience(1849) Self-Reliance (1841) Walden(1854) “The American Scholar” (1837)

22. The Defense of Nature • Transcendentalists and others feared the impact of capitalism and industrialization on nature • Nature is the source of human inspiration • Spirituality comes through communion with nature • “In wilderness is the preservation of the world.” - Thoreau

23. Wilderness Utopias • New Harmony, IN (1825) → Robert Owen → lived and worked in total equality → socialism • Brook Farm, MA (1841)→ transcendentalists and intellectuals → tension between ideals of individual freedom and the demands of communal living • The Oneida Community, NY (1848)→ rejected traditional notions of family and marriage

24. Utopian Communities – experiments in communal living • The Oneida Community • Brook Farm • New Harmony • Transcendentalists

25. Secular Utopian Communities IndividualFreedom Demands ofCommunity Life • spontaneity • self-fulfillment • discipline • organizational hierarchy

26. George Ripley(1802-1880) Brook FarmWest Roxbury, MA

27. Robert Owen(1771-1858) Utopian Socialist “Village of Cooperation”

28. Original Plans for New Harmony, IN New Harmony in 1832

29. New Harmony, IN

30. Redefining Gender Roles • Utopian societies and transcendentalism fostered a kind of feminism • Key figure in raising issues of gender Margaret Fuller – • Transcendentalist • Close associate of Emerson • Author – Woman in the Nineteenth Century • Discovery of the “self”’ would lead women to question being led and controlled by men and live different from the domestic ideal “If you have knowledge, let others light their candles in it.” Margaret Fuller

31. The Oneida CommunityNew York, 1848 • Millenarianism → the 2nd coming of Christ hadalready occurred→ could be free of sin and perfect in this world • Humans were no longer obliged to follow the moral rules of the past. • all residents marriedto each other→ “complex marriage” • carefully regulated “free love” • Communal raising of children John Humphrey Noyes(1811-1886)

32. The Shakers United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing • “Mother”AnnLee – 1774 • The Shakers used dancing as a worship practice → ecstatic dance/shake themselves free of sin • Shakers practiced celibacy, separating the sexes as far as practical • Shakers worked hard, lived simply (built furniture), and impressed outsiders with their cleanliness and order • Lacking any natural increase, membership began to decline after 1850, from a peak of about 6000 members

33. Mother Ann Lee (1736-1784) The Shakers • If you will take up your crosses against the works of generations, and follow Christ in the regeneration, God will cleanse you from all unrighteousness. • Remember the cries of those who are in need and trouble, that when you are in trouble, God may hear your cries. • If you improve in one talent, God will give you more.

34. Shaker Meeting

37. Joseph Smith Brigham Young Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints (Mormons)

38. Other Churches Founded • While the Protestant revivals sought to reform individual sinners, others sought to remake society at large • Mormons – The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints • Founded by Joseph Smith in upstate NY • In 1827, Smith announced that he had discovered a set of golden tablets on which was written the Book of Mormon • Proclaiming that he had a commission from God to reestablish the true church, Smith gathered a group of devoted followers

39. Mormons • Mormon culture upheld the middle-class values of hard work, self-control, and discipline • He tried to create a City of Zion: Kirkland, Ohio, Independence, Missouri, then to Nauvoo, Illinois. • His unorthodox teachings led to persecution and mob violence. • Smith was murdered in 1844 by an anti-Mormon mob in Carthage, Illinois. • Church in conflict

40. Treasure hunting → “peep stones” • Golden Tablets • Angel Moroni • The Book of Mormon • Seer stones → put them in a hat put the hat over your face and words appeared → this is how the tablets were translated • Plates disappeared • Jesus came to North America • Continuous revelation • polygamy

41. The Mormons(The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) • 1823  Golden Tablets • 1830 Book of Mormon • 1844  Murdered in Carthage, IL Joseph Smith(1805-1844)

42. Mormons • Brigham Young, Smith’s successor, led the Mormons westward in 1846-1847 to Utah where they could live and worship without interference • 12,000 Mormons leave Nauvoo and travel across the desert • Highly organized and centrally directed → a refuge against the disorder and uncertainty of the secular world

44. ANTEBELLUM CULTURE AND REFORM (12-2) pp. 321-330 → Remaking Society • Revivalism, Morality, and Order • The Temperance Crusade • Health Fads and Phrenology • Medical Science • Reforming Education • Rehabilitation • The Indian Reservation • The Emergence of Feminism

45. Reformers sought to purify the nation by removing sins of slavery, intemperance (alcohol), male domination and war….. • Some removed themselves from society and tried to create Utopian societies based on collective ownership (socialism/communism) • Reformers used education, lyceum meetings, newspapers in inform public of their issues….. • Age of Reform 1790 to 1860 • Ante-Bellum or before the Civil War • Romantic Age • 2ndGreat Awakening Purifying the Nation • Reformers questioned the value of material progress in an age of industrialization if it were not accompanied by progress in solving the important human problems • Primarily a Northern movement • Southerners resisted reform movements because it feared abolition of slavery Reformers pointed out the inequality in society stating the DOI as the basis of their argument… Rise of Unitarians who believed a God of love instead of the Puritan concept of an angry God. • Unitarians believed one could show the love of God by helping others…. • Developed a “social conscience” for improving the quality of life in society

46. The Second Great Awakening “Spiritual Reform From Within”[Religious Revivalism] Social Reforms & Redefining the Ideal of Equality Education Temperance Abolitionism Asylum &Penal Reform Women’s Rights

47. nativism Utopian communities Movements in American Culture In the Mid-1800’s revivalism romanticism transcendentalism

48. The Rise of Popular Religion In France, I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom pursuing courses diametrically opposed to each other; but in America, I found that they were intimately united, and that they reigned in common over the same country… Religion was the foremost of the political institutions of the United States. -- Alexis de Tocqueville, 1832

49. The 2nd Great Awakening = Reform Movements

50. Second Great Awakening As a result of the Second Great Awakening (a series of revivals in the 1790s-early 1800s), the dominant form of Christianity in America became evangelical Protestantism • Membership in the major Protestant churches—Congregational, Presbyterian, Baptist, and Methodist—soared • By 1840 an estimated half of the adult population was connected to some church, with the Methodists emerging as the largest denomination in both the North and the South