Download I. Reactions to Changing Conditions A. Romanticism and Genteel

I.
II.
Reactions to Changing Conditions
A. Romanticism and Genteel Culture
1. Americans imported romanticism as a mode of thought from Europe.
2. Leading cultural figures in America combined individualism with romanticism.
3. Transcendentalism
a) Ralph Waldo Emerson
4. Emerson also led the way in the development of an American literature.
5. In history, George Bancroft argued for the uniqueness of the American experience.
6. In the visual arts, emphasis on American scenes replaced the neoclassicism of the
beginning of the nineteenth century.
B. Culture and Resistance among Workers
1. Alcoholism abounded.
2. Women were worse off than men.
3. First organized labor strike in America took place in 1806
C. Culture and Resistance among Slaves
1. A truly unique African American culture evolved among slave communities.
2. Unlike northern workers, salves had no like protections or civil rights
3. Running away was the most common form of active resistance
4. Most frightening was open and armed revolt
a. Turner’s Rebellion
D. Experimental Efforts to Regain Community
1. American cultural leaders and their followers who reacted to excesses in individualism
established experimental communities.
a) Brook Farm
b) New Harmony
2. Experimental religious communities also arose.
a) Joseph Smith established the Mormon Church.
E. A Second Great Awakening
1. New Protestant ideas in the early nineteenth century emphasized the individual.
2. Charles G. Finney
3. Revivalism challenged existing church authority.
F. The Middle Class and Moral Reform
1. Hundreds of voluntary societies arose in behalf of many reform causes.
2. Religious idealism influenced many of the reform movements.
a) New approaches to the criminal and the insane emerged.
b) Bible societies, Sunday schools, and Sabbath-rest movements developed.
3. Many of the reform movements sought to impose middle-class standards of behavior.
4. Educational reform was one such movement.
a) Horace Mann
5. Temperance
6. American Colonization Society
The Whig Alternative to Jacksonian Democracy
A. The End of the Old Party Structure
1. Anti-Jackson forces were at first unable to unite.
B. The New Political Coalition
1. Whig Party
C. Van Buren in the White House
1. Van Buren’s presidency was plagued by economic turmoil.
a) The Panic of 1837
D. Log-Cabin and Hard-Cider Campaign of 1840
1. The Whigs won with Harrison
III. The Triumph of “Manifest Destiny”
A. The Rise of Manifest Destiny
1. The concept of manifest destiny contributed to westward expansion.
a) The ideology of manifest destiny drew from religion: American possession of all of
North America was God’s design.
B. Expansion to the North and West
1. Expansion led to tension between the United States and Britain
2. In the Northeast, conflict flared over the border between Maine and Canada
3. In the Northwest, both England and the United States claimed Oregon.
C. Revolution in Texas
1. After winning independence, Mexico owned the regions in the American Southwest that
were formerly part of the Spanish Empire.
2. Tensions between the Mexican government and American settlers in Texas came to a
head in the early 1830s.
3. Santa Anna and the Mexican army invaded Texas.
a) Alamo
b) San Jacinto
4. The Texans requested that the United States annex Texas.
D. The Politics of Manifest Destiny
1. President Tyler favored U.S. expansion.
2. Expansion was the major issue in the presidential election of 1844.
3. Congress approved a joint resolution annexing Texas.