Reform Movements Ch 6 Sec 3 Temperance Movement

Reform Movements Ch. 6 Sec. 3

Temperance Movement • Alcoholism was widespread during the early 1800’s – Temperance – moderation in the consumption of alcohol – American Temperance Union – mainly women • Argued that no social vice caused more crime, disorder, and poverty than the excessive use of alcohol • Men who drank excessively… – Spent money on liquor rather than food and other family necessities – Abused their wives and children • 1851 Maine passed Prohibition law

Prison Reform • Prisons were literally holes in the ground in some cases – Ex. – abandoned mineshafts, etc. • Overcrowded • Many began to call for a better environment for inmates – Belief in rehabilitating prisoners rather than just locking them up

Prison Reform • New institutions… – Rigid discipline – rid criminals of the laxness – Solitary confinement and silence on work crews • Think about what they had done • - Penitentiaries- prisoners could achieve remorse • Dorothea Dix – Led prison reform after seeing poor conditions – Created special institutions called asylums for the mentally ill

Education Reform • 1800 - Push for public education – Govt. funded schools open to all citizens • A democratic republic could only survive if the voters well educated and informed • Horace Mann (Massachusetts legislator) – Created a state board of education – Established training for teachers – Doubled teacher salaries

Education Reform • 1852 – Massachusetts passed the first mandatory school attendance law • School was to teach the basics of… – Reading, writing, arithmetic, and instill a work ethic – Local and state taxes supported tuition • The South as a whole responded less quickly to education to the North

“True Womanhood” • The idea that women should be homemakers and should take responsibility for developing their children's characters • Women were… – Viewed as more moral and charitable than men – Expected to be models of piety and virtue to their children and husbands

Women’s Movement • “True womanhood” implied that wives were now partners with their husbands and morally superior to them – They needed greater political rights to make society more virtuous • 1848 – Seneca Falls Convention – Organized by Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony – Marked the beginnning of an organized women’s movement

Seneca Falls Convention • Issued a Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions – Declaration of Ind. “…that all men and women (added in) are created equal…” • Stanton proposed that they focus on women’s suffrage – Women gaining the right to vote • Women gained some property rights but no voting until 1920!

Gradualism • Early antislavery societies supported gradualism – End slavery gradually • 1 st – stop new slaves from being brought into the US • 2 nd – phase out slavery in the North and Upper South • 3 rd – end slavery in the Lower South

Antislavery Colonization • American Colonization Society (ACS) – Best solution to end slavery was to send AA back to their ancestral homelands in Africa – ACS acquired land in West Africa and b/g shipping free AA back to Africa • Established a colony that eventually b/c Liberia – B/c a country in 1847 – adopted a constitution based on the US – capital Monrovia named after president Monroe • Colonization was never a realistic solution b/c the cost of transporting the AA was high and AA were now assimilated

Abolitionist Movement • Abolitionists argued that enslaved AA should be freed immediately – W/o compensation to slaveholders • David Walker – First well-known advocate of abolition – Advocated violence and rebellion as the only way to end slavery

Abolition Movement • William Lloyd Garrison – 1830’s – Began a large national abolitionist movement – Founded Boston’s antislavery newspaper the Liberator – Demanded an immediate end to slavery – Believed slavery was immoral and slaveholders were evil – Only option was immediate and complete emancipation! • Emancipation – freeing of all enslaved people

AA Abolitionist • Frederick Douglass – Escaped from slavery in Maryland, brilliant thinker and speaker – Published his own antislavery newspaper, the North Star and wrote an autobiography • Sojourner Truth – Gained freedom in 1827 when NY freed all remaining enslaved people in the state – Her antislavery speeches drew large crowds • Joyous, deeply religious, full of stories and song