Antebellum

Reforms
1820-1860

The Second Great Awakening

The Second Great

Awakening

Spiritual Reform from

Within (Religious
Revivalism)

Social Reforms &

Redefining the Ideal
of Equality

Temperan
ce

Asylum &
Penal
Reform

Abolition

Educatio
n

Womens
Rights

Cont.
The SGA begins in response to the growing
liberalism in religion.

Deism - reason over revelation/science over the bible.

Unitarianism - God is a single person, not a trinity. Stressed the essential goodness of
human beings, not the evil nature of Calvinism.

The Benevolent Empire is a creation of the SGA sends missionaries across America to convert
people to Christianity

The movement begins in the southern frontier, but

spreads to Northeastern cities.

Cont.

Burned Over Districts - no fuel

left for the fire of conversion most people had converted to
Christianity.

The SGA led to the feminization

of religion - women make up
majority of Church membership
and move into charity work in
the reform movements it
sparked.

The Mormons

The LDS church is founded in one of the burned over districts.

Founded by Joseph Smith, wrote the Book of Mormon in 1830.

Murdered in 1844 in Carthage, IL over accusation the Mormons plotted to take over
the NW.

Cont.

Mormons were
violently persecuted
for their beliefs.

Believed they were chosen

and wanted a semiindependent state in the US.
Later, Smith added
Polygamy to church doctrine,
outraging Christians.

Cont.

To escape persecution the Mormons flee West to the

Utah territory.

Led by Joseph Smiths protege, Brigham Young.

Run as a frontier theocracy.
Refused to follow federal polygamy laws which delayed
statehood until 1896.

The Temperance Movement

The American Temperance Society was founded in 1826 to combat Demon

Rum.

Frances Willard and Lyman Beecher and family will lead the fight.

Is the Temperance movement successful?

The
Drunkard
s
Progress

Cont.

Neal Dow

Father of Prohibition

Maine Law, 1851

First US Law to ban the manufacture and sale of alcohol.

Temperance is the most widely supported, least sectional and most successful of all
the reform movement

The primary resistance will come from immigrants

- Irish and German

Womens Rights

What rights does a early 19th Century woman have?

Unable to vote
Legal status of a minor
Single - could own her own property
Married - no control over her property or children
Could not initiate divorce
Couldnt make wills, sign contracts or bring suit in court without her husbands
permission.

The Separate Spheres Concept

AKA The Cult of Domesticity

A womans sphere was in the home (to be a refuge from the cruel world outside)
Her role was to civilize her husband and family

Had great moral power

Seen as physically and emotionally weak, but also artistic and refined.
The idea of Republican Motherhood is still alive.

Womens Rights Cont.

Advocates compared the Cult of Domesticity to slavery.

The Second Great Awakening inspired many women to impove society. - Many
would begin with Abolition.

The Grimke Sisters

- Southern
Abolitionists

- Lucy Stone
-

American Womens
Suffrage Association

Womens Rights

By 1840 Abolitionism would split the movement.

Womens rights leaders (Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony)
call a meeting in 1848.

Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments

Religious Training

Educational Reform

v
Education
More people have the right to voteSecular
creating
a need for
more education.
There are also many immigrants that need to be
Americanized.
Most communities were unwilling to pay so most
schooling in done in private schools.
By 1850 there is free public education in most of the
North, including some high schools.
Mostly women teachers
Catherine Beecher is a strong advocate for early
childhood and female education.

Horace Mann

Father of American Education

Children were clay in the

hands of teachers and school
officials
Children should be molded
into a state of perfection.
Discouraged corporal
punishment
Established state teacher
training schools - normal
schools.

Penitentiary Reform

Prisons are an American creation.

Reformers hope to help prisoners
repent and learn to lead normal lives,
reflect on their sins and become better
citizens.
Horrid conditions existed with the sane
and insane living together.
Dorothea Dix gets prison reforms and
gets the insane out of prisons.
Leads to the establishment of
mental asylums.
Will be appointed as the
Superintendent of Nurses for Union
forces in the Civil War.

Cont.
Auburn System

First created in 1821, Auburn, NY

Congragate System
Congregate work by day BUT in total
silence.
Confined to solitary at night

Pennsylvania System

Individual system
isolates inmate for entire stay
Blindfolded on admittance
Overcrowding a problem.