Reform in American Society

1. Reform in American Society

2. America’s Spiritual AwakeningSection 1

3. Second Great Awakening • During the early decades of the 19th Century, people again turned to religion • In many cases it was for the same reasons which led to the First Great Awakening in the 1700s – fear of change

4. Great AwakeningsFirstSecond • Fate controlled by omnipotent God • People could not save selves from damnation • Religion=fear • “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” • In US and Europe • Free will • People could seek salvation and control destiny • Focus on saving soul, not hellfire and damnation. • Led to reforms in the North

5. Charles G. Finney • Finney preached in NY • His message differed from that of Jonathan Edwards • People could be saved and seek salvation • Conversion brought thousands back to the church

6. Religion in the 19th Century • Revivals were held throughout the country, but were most effective in the North • New converts were asked to examine their soul and become a better person

7. Religion in the 19th Century • African-American churches united slaves in a common belief of freedom • Churches in the north, like Rev. Richard Allen’s Bethel African Church, provided a cultural center

8. Transcendentalists • In the early and mid-1800s, a group of people started looking at the world, religion and the changing economy in a different way. • Most sought a simpler life and focused on emotions and feeling

9. Transcendentalists • Ralph Waldo Emerson – writer • Henry David Thoreau – Walden and Civil Disobedience • Unitarians – religious group who tried to make people better through reforms

10. Utopian Communities • Shakers - Religious, Mother Ann Lee, 6000 members in several states • Forbid marriage and sex • Lack of members caused its demise • Amana settlement allowed marriage and survived

11. Utopian Communities • Brook Farm - founded by George Ripley • Communal living where everyone worked for the common good.

12. Utopian CommunitiesBefore the Civil War

13. Utopian Communities • Utopian communities generally failed within a few years due to lack of funding or internal problems.

14. American Romantics • True romanticism believes that every individual brings a certain uniqueness to the world and are therefore valuable for their individual contributions • Thomas Cole: painted western landscapes • Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Scarlet Letter and Moby Dick • Edgar Allan Poe: the Raven • Emily Dickinson • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Walt Whitman: great patriotic poet • Wonderful expressions of individual joy and pain is portrayed during this era

15. Section 2Early Immigration and Urban Reform • Main Idea • A wave of Irish and German immigrants entered the United States during a period of urbanization and reform. • Reading Focus • Why did many Irish and Germans immigrate to the United States in the 1840s and 1850s? • What was life in the United States like for the new immigrants? • How did urbanization and industrialization lead to reform?

16. Irish and German Immigrants • Since the 1700s, the poor people of Ireland had relied on the potato as their staple, or major, food crop. • From 1845 to 1849, a disease, or blight, struck the crop, severely restricting the potato harvest. • Deprived of their primary food source and receiving little relief from the ruling British government, Ireland’s poor faced starvation. • By 1850 about 1 million had died during the Great Irish Famine. • Desperate to save themselves and their families, about 1.5 million of them settled in the United States.

17. Irish and German Immigrants • Like the Irish, many Germans were fleeing conditions in their homeland. • Some fled economic depression and overpopulation, which made jobs scarce. • Others left to escape religious persecution, harsh tax laws, or military service. • Still others fled their country after a revolution in 1848 failed. • Many Germans came to the United States in search of free land and business opportunities. • Push-pull model of immigration: factors that cause people to leave their homeland are “pushes,” and factors that cause people to move to a particular country are called “pulls.”

18. The Lives of Immigrants • Many immigrant groups to the United States have faced discrimination. • As the number of Irish immigrants grew, so too did these feelings of nativism, or opposition to immigration. • But the influx of a huge number of poor, Catholic, Irish immigrants in such a short time changed many Americans’ views. • They began to regard immigrants as a threat to their way of life.

19. The Lives of Immigrants • Nearly as many Germans as Irish immigrated to the United States in the mid-1800s. • Fortunately for the Germans, they did not encounter the same hostility that greeted Irish immigrants. • Most German immigrants were middle class and Protestant. • They could afford to travel far inland, seeking free or cheap land, reunions with relatives, or other opportunities in the heartland. • German immigrants worked as farmers, artisans, factory workers, and in other occupations.

20. Reform, Urbanization, and Industrialization • By the mid-1800s, large American cities were home to some tremendously wealthy people. • The vast majority of urban Americans, however, were very poor. • Many city-dwellers lived in tenements, or poorly made, crowded apartment buildings. • Lacked adequate light, ventilation, and sanitation • They were very unhealthy places to live. • Disease spread rapidly in the crowded conditions.

22. Reform, Urbanization, and Industrialization • In some cities, local boards of health were established to set sanitation rules. • Enforcement was often uneven, and the poorer neighborhoods received less attention than richer ones. • Local reform societies reached only a fraction of those who needed help. • For the most part, the poor of America’s large cities fended for themselves, helping their families, neighbors, and friends as best they could. • Serious efforts at reforming cities would not begin until late in the century.

23. Reform, Urbanization, and Industrialization • Previously, most Americans had worked on farms. • Worked for themselves, kept the profits they earned, and made much of what they needed • American factory workers were wage earners who were paid a set amount by business owners. • Using their limited wages, they had to buy the things they needed from merchants in the city where they lived. • A new social class arose: the urban working class. • Most of them were poor and uneducated. • Many were immigrants. • Business owners wanted to maximize their profits. • Resulted in low wages, long hours, and unsafe working conditions for workers

24. Reform, Urbanization, and Industrialization • In the 1820s, workers began to organize into groups to demand higher wages, shorter hours, and safer working conditions. • Labor movement: efforts by workers to improve their situation • Skilled workers, such as carpenters and masons, formed organizations to regulate their pay. • In 1834 several smaller groups united to form the National Trades Union in New York City. • The labor movement faced fierce opposition from business owners and many government officials.

25. Reform, Urbanization, and Industrialization • The Ten-Hour Movement: a labor reform campaign to limit the working day to 10 hours from the more common 12 hours or more • By 1840, all federal employees received a 10-hour workday. • In the mid-1840s, New Hampshire became the first state to limit the workday to 10 hours. Other states followed New Hampshire’s example. • Despite this success, laborers remained very much at the whim of business owners. It would be decades before they made substantial progress in improving their work conditions.

26. Many people were not happy about immigration • Nativism: an extreme dislike for immigrants by native born people and a desire to limit immigration • Nativists disliked: • Irish, Asians, Jews and Eastern Europeans

27. Section 3 Reforming Society

28. Prison Reform • Alexis de Tocqueville visited America to observe the prison system • He was dismayed at the amount of abuse

29. Prison Reform • Dorthea Dix was horrified to see mentally ill and handicapped people in prisons alongside violent criminals. • She led the drive to build separate facilities for mentally ill people

30. Children in the Jails • Josiah Quincy (I think grandson of Quincy that defended the British soldiers at the Boston Massacre) wanted to separate the sentencing for adults and children • The children should receive less time for the crimes and work more on rehabilitation • Rehabilitation worked on preparing the individual for life outside the jail with education and job skills

31. Common – School movement • Horace Mann pushed for free and compulsory education for all children. • He helped establish tax supported schools, a longer school year and teacher training

32. School Reform • McGuffy Readers were used to teach children to read • They combined phonics with stories encouraging hard work, punctuality and sobriety.

34. School Reform • Catherine Beecher sought to create teachers from spinster women • Schools also responsible for raising children

35. School Reform

36. Secondary School Enrollment 1840-1860

37. Temperance • The beverages of choice in the 1800s were beer and whiskey • With the new machinery of the Industrial Revolution, men were getting injured and even killed • Reformers blamed alcohol on the breakup of families and poverty

38. Temperance • Women led the temperance movement. • Temperance societies sprung up throughout the country • They were so successful that alcohol consumption dropped by 50%

39. Temperance • American Temperance Society and the American Temperance Union helped spread the message - • “Alcohol corrupted society”

41. Education for Women • Sara Grimke ran one of several schools open for women • Emma Willard started the first college for women • Oberlin College opened their doors to women • Elizabeth Blackwell became America’s first female doctor

42. Education for Women • Catherine Beecher(daughter of Lyman Beecher) took a survey on women’s health and found that 3 of every 4th woman was ill since they rarely bathed or exercised. • She started a school for all girls • Before 1820s most girls only attended elementary school

43. Education for people with Disabilties • Samuel Howe worked to provide a way for those with visual disabilities to receive an education • Thomas Gallaudet studied to provide those with hearing impairments an education

44. Section 4 The movement to End Slavery

45. Abolitionists • By the 1820s some people began to openly question the morality of slavery • Others wanted violent uprisings

46. What to do with free slaves? • Some proposed that all Blacks be sent “back” to Africa Robert Finley started the American Coloniation Society • This society founded Liberia on the west coast of Africa and approximately 12,000 African Americans relocated there

47. Abolitionists • Charles Finney preached about the evils of slavery • Most whites in the north gave slavery no attention at all • Some, particularly the Irish, wanted slavery to continue

48. Abolitionists • William Lloyd Garrison - editor of “The Liberator” • Wanted slave holders to release their slaves immediately with no payment for their loss • He associated with Africans who promoted violence • Found the Anti-Slavery Society

49. Abolitionists • David Walker – wrote “Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World” • Was completely against the returning to Africa idea. He argued America was his not Africa and it had been built with the blood and sweat of other black men– why should he leave? • Thought that slaves that did not revolt deserved to be enslaved

50. Abolitionists • Frederick Douglass - born a slave and ran away as a child • Eloquent speaker who talked about his life as a slave • Worked with Garrison for a time but split with him to write “The North Star”