Religious Awakening

1. Religious Awakening Chapter 4, Section 1

2. Second Great Awakening • The revival of religious feeling in the U.S. during the 1800s was known as the Second Great Awakening. • Many preachers believed that industrialization had caused immorality and wanted to correct this problem for the country’s future. • These preachers were known as revivalists, because they wanted to revive religion in the U.S. • The more emotional form of worship (evangelical) included preachers such as Charles Grandison Finney and Lyman Beecher.

3. New Religious Groups Form • Two major religious groups formed during this time period. • The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, led by Joseph Smith, started in 1830. They are known as Mormons. • Some Puritans in New England believed that instead of a Trinity, God should be seen as a single entity. This group was called the Unitarians.

4. Discrimination Against Non-Protestants • The Second Great Awakening was Protestant-dominated. Those that weren’t faced discrimination. • Mormons lived in their own communities and had many practices that others frowned upon. • They owned land as a group and voted as a group, giving them both economic and political power. • Mormons were pushed westward until they reached Utah. • Catholics and Jews were also discriminated against. • Americans feared Catholics’ loyalty to the Pope; • Their willingness to work for low wages threatened other workers; • Jews were prevented from holding public office in many states.

5. Utopias and Transcendentalism • Two new religious groups were more concerned with creating a more perfect society. • Utopian communities separated themselves from the rest of society and aspired to be perfect societies. • Shaker communities separated men and women and relied on crafts for money. • Transcendentalists developed a new way to look at God, humanity and nature. • They believed people should go beyond, or transcend, their senses to learn about the world. • Listen to nature and own consciences rather than religious doctrines. • Famous transcendentalist: Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.

6. Early Reform Chapter 4 Section 2

7. Reforming Education • Goals: • Create a tax-supported system of schools– public schools where all children could attend; • Expanding education would help make decisions in a democracy; • Promote economic growth by creating knowledgeable workers. • Major Leaders: • Horace Mann– Massachusetts senator; creator of the first state board of education. • Catharine Beecher and Emma Willard established schools for women.

8. Helping the Ill and Imprisoned • Mentally ill • Goal: Build hospitals that separated the mentally ill from prisoners. • Prisons • Goal: Reform prisons to make prisoners feel sorrow for their crimes. • Both reform movements were led by Dorothea Dix.

9. Alcohol • Industrialization brought about negative changes to society such as increased crime, sickness and poverty. Alcohol was seen as the root of these problems. • The temperance movement was meant to end alcohol abuse and the problems it caused. • Temperance= drinking in moderation. • Leader Neal Dow • The temperance movement was mildly successful during the 1800s, passing some state laws to limit the sale of alcohol.

10. Reformation Part 2 Chapter 4, Sections 3 and 4

11. Slave Resistance • By 1830, there were 2 million slaves within the United States, primarily in the South. • Slaves often took comfort in their religion, finding hope during their difficult lives. • Some slaves resisted their oppression by running away or by fighting. • One of the most violent slave uprisings was by Nat Turner in 1831. • He and his group of slaves killed over 60 people before being captured.

12. The Abolition Movement • During the 1800s, a growing number of Americans wanted to end slavery on moral grounds. • This began the abolition movement. • Methods: • Antislavery publications, abolitionist societies, gave speeches. • Leaders: • William Lloyd Garrison; publisher of The Liberator; • Frederick Douglass; former slave

13. Free African Americans • Once African Americans gained their freedom, they were still discriminated against. • Slaveholders, especially, were troubled by the presence of freedmen. • They believed the large population of freedmen encouraged those still enslaved to escape. • A group of slaveholders formed the American Colonization Society (ACS) , whose goal was to encourage migration of freedmen back to Africa. • This led to the establishment of Liberia, a colony for freed slaves.

14. Working Against Abolition • Many Americans (not just in the South) resisted abolition for various reasons. • Slavery’s economic impact in both the South and to northern industry; • Desire to avoid competition for low-skilled jobs with free African Americans; • Belief to some that African Americans are naturally inferior to whites.

15. The Women’s Movement Chapter 4, Section 4

16. The Women’s Movement • In the early 1800s, women had very few rights. • Upon marriage, the property a woman owned became her husband’s. • Goal: achieve greater rights and opportunities for women. • Leaders: Sojourner Truth, Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Frederick Douglass • Women, who gained strength by working for other causes, realized they had very little rights themselves.

17. Seneca Falls Convention • In 1848, Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton organized a convention in Seneca Falls, New York. • A Declaration of Sentiments, outlining the aims of the convention was read during the convention. • The language was modeled after the Declaration of Independence. • The convention inspired many women, including Amelia Bloomer, who published a newspaper called The Lily. • Susan B. Anthony became a leader in the fight for women’s suffrage– the right to vote.