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CHAPTER 12 Religion & Reform. Alexis DeTocqueville coined a new word; INDIVIDUALISM to describe the conditions and values of White Americans.
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Alexis DeTocqueville coined a new word; INDIVIDUALISM to describe the conditions and values of White Americans • New England Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson’s vision of the self disciplined individual with freedom balanced by personal responsibility & liberated from traditional social restraint… influenced thousands of ordinary Americans and a generation of artists & writers. Transcendentalists, like Emerson, believed an ideal order of reality transcended the concrete world of the senses.
Another Transcendentalist, Henry David Thoreau, Spent a year in solitude living in the woods around Walden Pond, which inspired him to write the book, “Walden” a record of his spiritual search for meanings beyond the artificial daily life.
Henry David Thoreau was also an abolitionist and refused to pay his taxes to support the Mexican war and slavery. And went to Jail for it. He wrote an essay titled “Civil Disobedience” arguing that individuals should passively resist a government that tolerated slavery. • Margaret Fuller, In her book, “Woman in the 19th century “ argued that every woman deserved Psychological & Social Independence because of her relationship with God transcended gender.
Nathaniel Hawthorne & Herman Melville were not Transcendentalists and in their writings they warned that unrestrained individualism could destroy both individuals and social arrangements. In Herman Melville’s novel “Moby Dick” Captain Ahab’s Individual obsessive hunt for a White Whale ends with the death of Ahab and all but one of his crew. As a scathing critique of Transcendental individuality.
Utopians & other Strange beliefs • Some Transcendentalists believed they could make a Utopian society, and developed BROOK FARM a communal experiment where they tried to combine farming with an intellectual life… It was an economic failure and after a fire burned it down they sold it.
The “Shakers” were another Communal experiment based on the religious belief in Mother Ann Lee Stanley’s claim to be an incarnation of Jesus. Shakers believed in Abstaining from sex, alcohol, tobacco, politics and War. They were called Shakers because of the frenzied Dancing they performed as a part of their rituals.
American “perfectionists” John Humphrey Noyes believed that the 2nd coming of Christ had already happened, freeing humans to seek perfection on earth. Noyes established the first economically successful Commune, Which was called the Oneida Commune. Oneida Manufactured bear traps and Silverware. Following Noyes’ philosophy , They challenged monogamy by freeing women from being considered property of their husbands. This belief allowed for men and women to have sexual relations with whom ever they chose.
Joseph Smith claimed that the Angel Moroni had revealed to him ancient gold plates, with sacred writings that Smith translated. • The plates revealed that Jesus had come to ancient America to teach the word. Smith Organized the Church of Latter Day Saints In New York . After awhile they moved to Illinois and established the largest commune, but he was Murdered and Brigham Young took his followers to Utah to establish a settlement of the LDS around the Great Salt Lake . Soon after they transformed the desert into a fertile farmland with an extensive irrigation.
Abolitionism • The Abolition movement arose as a result of the Great Awakening. White Violence in the north against Blacks led David Walker to write a pamphlet in 1829 “An Appeal to Colored Citizens of the World” which justified slave rebellion and warned white Americans that violence and retribution would come if justice were delayed.
One of the most extreme Abolitionists was William Lloyd Garrison, Who even attacked the Constitution because it condoned slavery. • The Georgia Legislature offered a $10,000 reward to anyone who kidnapped and brought Garrison to stand trial for inciting a Slave rebellion.
Angelina & Sarah Grimke became famous for delivering antislavery lectures before mixed male & female audiences, and they were severely criticized for this unlady like action. • In their book “American Slavery as it is” Sarah Angelina Grimke and Theodore Dwight Weld presented testimony from Southerners themselves and Southern Newspapers about the evils of slavery.
The South was so defensive about the Slavery issue that in 1836 the House of Representatives passed the “GAG RULE” which stipulated that anti- slavery petitions received by the House would automatically be tabled, (set aside).
Harriet Beecher Stowe Who had never been to the South, wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which depicted slavery as a destroyer of slave families and a degrader of slave women. The book won many supporters in the North and many detractors in the South.
The Former slave, Sojourner Truth insisted that slave women were denied not only their basic human rights but also the protected separate sphere enjoyed by free women. “Ain’t I A Woman?”
Feminist Movements came right along side of the Slavery Movement. The latest movement did not attempt to challenge conventional women’s roles in society, but to strengthen the legal rights of married women. • Leaders such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott& Susan B. Anthony. In Central New York in 1848 The SENECA FALLS convention was held and the Seneca Falls Declaration was presented. The Declaration was drew on republican ideology and was modeled after the Declaration of Independence.
. By 1860 In New York, the efforts of these feminists resulted in a law that gave women the rights to full control over property they had brought into marriage if they became widowed. The right to collect their own wages. The right to bring suit in court. Women would still not win the right to vote in most states (including New York) until 1920. • Top to bottom: Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, & Susan B. Anthony.
