THE PURSUIT OF PERFECTION

1. THE PURSUIT OF PERFECTION America: Past and Present Chapter 12

2. The Rise of Evangelicalism • Separation of church and state gives all churches the chance to compete for converts • Pious Protestants form voluntary associations to combat sin, “infidelity”

3. The Second Great Awakening: The Frontier Phase • Camp meetings contribute to frontier life • provide emotional religion • offer opportunity for social life • Camp meeting revivals convey intensely personal religious message • Camp meetings rarely lead to social reform

4. The Second Great Awakening in the North • In New England reformers defend Calvinism against the Enlightenment • Charles G. Finney rejects Calvinism to preach free will • Finney preaches in upstate New York • Finney stresses revival techniques • Revivals lead to organization of more churches

5. From Revivalism to Reform • Northern revivals stimulate reform • Middle-class participants adapt evangelical religion to preserve traditional values • "The benevolent empire" of evangelical reform movements alter American life • e.g. temperance movement cuts alcohol consumption by more than fifty percent

6. Domesticity and Changes in the American Family • New conception of family’s role in society • Child rearing seen as essential preparation for self-disciplined Christian life • Women confined to domestic sphere • Women assume crucial role within home

7. Marriage for Love • Mutual love must characterize marriage • Wives became more of a companion to their husbands and less of a servant • Legally, the husband was the unchallenged head of the household

8. The Cult of Domesticity • "The Cult of True Womanhood" • places women in the home • glorifies home as center of all efforts to civilize and Christianize society • Middle- and upper-class women increasingly dedicated to the home as mothers • Women of leisure enter reform movements

9. The Discovery of Childhood • Nineteenth-century child the center of family • Each child seen as unique, irreplaceable • Ideal to form child’s character with affection • Parental discipline to instill guilt, not fear • Train child to learn self-discipline

10. Institutional Reform • Domesticity to inform public institutions • Schools continue what family begins • Asylums, prisons mend family’s failures

11. The Extension of Education • Public schools expand rapidly 1820-1850 • Working class sees as means to advance • Middle-class reformers see as means for inculcating values of hard work, responsibility • Horace Mann argues schools save immigrants, poor children from parents’ bad influence • Many parents believe public schools alienate children from their parents

12. Discovering the Asylum • Poor, criminal, insane seen as lacking self-discipline • Harsh measures to promote rehabilitation • solitary confinement of prisoners • strict daily schedule • Public support for rehabilitation skimpy • Prisons, asylums, poorhouses become warehouses for the unwanted

13. Reform Turns Radical • Most reform aims to improve society • Some radical reformers seek destruction of old society, creation of perfect social order

14. Divisions in the Benevolent Empire • Radical perfectionists impatient by 1830s, split from moderate reform • temperance movement • peace movement • antislavery movement • Moderates seek gradual end to slavery • Radicals demand immediate emancipation • 1833--American Anti-Slavery Society

15. The Abolitionist Enterprise: Theodore Dwight Weld • Weld an itinerant minister converted by Finney • Adapted his revivalist techniques to abolition • Successful mass meetings in Ohio, New York

16. The Abolitionist Enterprise: Public Reception • Appeal to hard-working small town folk • Opposition in cities & near Mason-Dixon line • Opposition from the working class • dislike blacks • fear black economic and social competition • Solid citizens see abolitionists as anarchists

17. The Abolitionist Enterprise: Obstacles • Abolitionists hampered by in-fighting • William Lloyd Garrison disrupts movement by associating with radical reform efforts • urged abolitionists to abstain from participating in the political process • also got involved in women’s rights movement • Some abolitionists help form the Liberty Party in 1840

18. Black Abolitionists • Former slaves related the horrible realities of bondage • prominent figures included Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth • Black newspapers, books, and pamphlets publicized abolitionism to a wider audience • Blacks were also active in the Underground Railroad

19. From Abolitionism to Women's Rights • Abolitionism open to women’s participation • Involvement raises awareness of women’s inequality • Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 • Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton organize • prompted by experience of inequality in abolition movement • begins movement for women’s rights

20. Radical Ideas & Experiments: Utopian Communities • Utopian socialism • Inspired by Robert Owen, Charles Fourier • New Harmony, Indiana—Owenite • Fourierite phalanxes • Religious utopianism • Shakers • Oneida Community

21. Utopian Communities Before the Civil War

22. Radical Ideas & Experiments: Transcendentalism • Ralph Waldo Emerson • Margaret Fuller • George Ripley • founded cooperative community at Brook Farm • Henry David Thoreau

23. Counterpoint on Reform • Reform encounters perceptive critics • Nathaniel Hawthorne allegorically refuted perfectionist movements • Reform prompts necessary changes in American life