Religion, Slavery, Women, & the Workplace

1. Religion, Slavery, Women, & the Workplace

2. A broad religious movement that swept across the U.S. after 1790 which emphasized individual responsibility for seeking salvation and insisted that people could improve themselves and society. • The church became a political, cultural, and social center for African Americans, providing schools and other services that whites denied free blacks. Slaves interpreted the Christian message as a promise of freedom for their people. The church gave slaves a deep inner faith, a strong sense of community, and the spiritual support to oppose slavery.

3. 3. Some states, like PA, began to develop tax supported public school systems. By the 1850’s every state had a system of public elementary schools. Horace Mann led school reforms in MA that increased the $ spent on schools, instituted curriculum reforms, and established teacher training programs. 4. Before Dorothea Dix prisoners lived in brutal conditions, were beaten and mentally ill people were housed with common criminals. Dix led to the passage of laws that improved the conditions in prisons and set up public hospitals for the mentally ill.

4. 5. They wanted all African Americans to be moved back to Africa. They believed that A.A. were an inferior race that could not coexist with white society. Most Africans did not want to go and the plan for colonization in Africa did not work at all. 6. William Lloyd Garrison supported immediate emancipation which would provide no compensation to slaveholders. He also supported using violence to end slavery. Frederick Douglass supported abolition but was not as radical as Garrison. He wanted slavery to end without violence and he realized that it would take time for slavery to end effectively.

5. 7. Rural slaves lived & worked on large plantations in large groups, they all worked in the fields from dawn until dusk, they lived in small cramped slave quarters and were often whipped when not working fast enough. Urban slaves worked in textile mills, factories, mines, & lumberyards. They worked for an hourly wage but the slave owner got the $. Urban slaves were fed & clothed much better and lived in better conditions than rural slaves.

6. 8. Escaped slave Nat Turner gathered a group of 50 followers which attacked and killed 70 white plantation dwellers. Southern whites retaliated and killed many of Turner’s followers and eventually captured and killed Turner. This rebellion led to the tightening of restrictions against slaves. Slave owners would not allow slaves to learn to read & write, attend church, own guns, purchase alcohol, assemble in public, testify in court, or work independently due to the fear of future rebellions.

7. 9. The cult of domesticity (based on prevailing customs) forced women to restrict their activities after marriage to home and family. This prevented women from becoming educated and working outside the home. 10. Many women were opposed to slavery and tried to assist the abolition movement by raising money, distributing literature, and collecting signatures for petitions to Congress. Some men supported the women’s efforts and others opposed. Their participation in the abolition movement eventually led women to fight for their own rights as well.

8. 11. Most women were only allowed to go to elementary school because they needed no further education to become a housewife. In the 1820’s & 1830’s educational reformers began to open schools for women like Troy Female Seminary, Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, & Oberlin College 12. The first women’s rights convention in U.S. History held in Seneca Falls NY, in 1848. It was written in the style of the Declaration of Independence and it called for women to be able to participate in public issues on an equal basis with men except for the right to vote.

9. 13. Masters were the most experienced shop worker who was an expert at the craft journeymen were skilled workers who were employed by masters that had some experience but were not as skilled as the masters apprentices were young workers who were still learning the craft 14. Conditions that already included 12 hour workdays, poor ventilation, heat, & darkness worsened when managers forced workers to become more productive without hiring enough new workers. They were fined for tardiness, wages were lowered, and this led to the girls going on strike.

10. 15. Mill owners threatened to replace striking workers with other local women and strikers backed down and went to work. Mill owners would fire the leaders of the strike & without strong leadership most of the women went back to work without gaining anything. 16. Most U.S. immigrants came from northern & western Europe, specifically Germany & Ireland Immigrants settled in northern & eastern cities where the Industrial Revolution provided new jobs. They avoided the south because slavery limited their ability to make a living.