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Revivalism
1800-1860
Second Great Awakening
• At the start of the 18th century many people
wanted to improve the character of the American
people
• Most Americans still attended Church, but it was
not the Puritan religion
• Many leading figures – Jefferson – were Deists
• Helped create Unitarianism – God existed in only
one person, not the Trinity
• They stressed the goodness of human nature and
saw God as loving and kind
• Unitarians tended to be intellectuals like Ralph
Waldo Emerson, who were rational and
optimistic
• Slowly a new emphasis on religion started to
develop
• It was a “tidal wave of spiritual fervor”
• It destroyed old churches and created new sects
• It also influenced prison reform, temperance,
woman’s movement and the abolition of slavery
• At “camp meeting” thousands would meet to
hear evangelical speakers
• Most new believers became Baptists or
Methodists
• Preachers like Peter Cartwright and Charles
Goodison Finney appealed to thousands who
wanted to be saved – especially appealing to
women
• Methodists and Baptists tended to come from the
less wealthier segments of society
• In 1844 the Methodists and Baptists both split
from their northern churches over the issue of
slavery
• In 1857 the Presbyterians also split over the issue
Mormons
• In 1830 Joseph Smith claimed he had been
given golden plates by an angel
• The plates became the Book of Mormon and
launched the Church of Latter-Day Saints
• Smith was forced to move, first from Ohio then
from Missouri, by other religious sects
• Accusations of polygamy led to continued
hostility
• In 1844 Smith and his brother were murdered
in Illinois – the movement seemed in danger
• Brigham Young took over and in 1846-7 he led
his people to Utah to avoid persecution
• The barren land of Utah was soon made to
flourish by the Mormons and the community
grew
• It was a frontier theocracy
• But problems occurred when Washington tried to
control Young who had made himself governor
• Issues of polygamy prevented the territory from
becoming a state until 1896
Education
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Most wealthy Americans opposed free
education
But fear of an uneducated mob with the power
to vote forced many to consider public
education
The image of the school house became a
common feature in many small towns
Students in mixed grades usually learned the
“three Rs”
It was prohibited to teach blacks in the South
• Horace Mann campaigned for better schools,
more pay for teachers, and more time in school
• Noah Webster the “Schoolmaster of the republic”
created lessons that promoted patriotism
• The Second Great Awakening led to the opening
of many small liberal arts colleges especially in
the South and West
• In 1795 the state-run University of North
Carolina opened
• In 1819 the University of Virginia was founded
by Thomas Jefferson
• Women’s education was frowned upon
Reforms
• The Second Great Awakening caused people to
seek the creation of a morally-correct society
• Some of the most significant reforms were in the
field of prison reform – especially for debt
• By the 1830s hundreds of people were in prison
for owing less than one dollar
• With the power of the ballot the poor people were
able to remove the threat of debtors’ prison
• The Enlightenment led to a softening of harsh
punishments
• The insane were locked up as animals
• Dorothy Dix wrote a report on insanity and
asylums which revealed the true extent of the
cruelty
• Because of her work the conditions did improve
• In 1828 the American Peace Society was formed
• The other big problem in America was
alcoholism
• 1826 American Temperance Society formed in
Boston
• They stressed temperance as opposed to
“teetotalism”
• Neal S. Dow became known as the “Father of
Prohibition” sponsored the Maine Law in 1851,
prohibited the manufacture and sale of alcohol
Cult of Domesticity
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The 19th century was man’s world
Like slaves – women were subordinate, could be
legally beaten, and could not vote
(Treated better than in Europe)
Women were expected to create a cult of
domesticity for the home
Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton
became prominent in the women’s rights
movement
The most conspicuous advocate was Susan B.
Anthony
• Feminists met at Seneca Falls, New York in 1848
at the Women’s Rights Convention
• Stanton read the “Declaration of Sentiments” –
that all men and women are created equal
• The Seneca Falls Convention was the start of the
modern women’s rights movement – even though
the call for the ballot was jeered
• Before the Civil War the movement closely tied
itself to the antislavery campaign. Women say
the treatment of slaves and women as being
parallel
• After the war there was a great sense of
disappointment over the lack of success for
women
Literature
• Before 1820 much of the literature was British
and few people actually had the time to read
• After the War of 1812 and the development of a
national spirit, literature became important
• The Knickerbocker Group of New York
encouraged American authors to write about
American themes
• Washington Irving was the first American author
to gain international recognition. He wrote Rip
Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
• James Fenimore Cooper, was the first American
novelist – his greatest achievement was the
Leatherstocking Tales which included The Last of
the Mohicans
• One of the effects of the flowering of literature
was the transcendental movement
• They rejected the traditional philosophies that
knowledge comes from the senses and stressed
that truth transcends the senses, not just through
observations
• The theories of the transcendentalists were vague
but they all agreed upon the necessity for selfdiscipline, self-reliance, and value of the
individual – which conflicted with authorities
• Ralph Waldo Emerson was the most famous
transcendentalist
• Henry David Thoreau criticized the government
for slavery and refused to pay his taxes
• In 1854 he wrote Walden: Or Life in the Woods
but more influential was his essay On the Duty of
Civil Disobedience which later encouraged
Gandhi and King
• The most famous poet was Walt Whitman who
wrote Leaves of Grass and earned him the title
“Poet Laureate of Democracy”