REFORM MOVEMENTS OF THE 1800 S Which reforms

REFORM MOVEMENTS OF THE 1800 S Which reforms of the era had the most lasting effect on the civil rights and liberties of Americans?

• The first half of the nineteenth century was a time of “movers and shakers, ” people who saw injustices in American society and worked to abolish those injustices. • These reforms would change the lives of many individuals.

What were the major reform movements of the 1800 s? • • • Treatment of the mentally ill Temperance movement Abolition of slavery Women’s rights Education

Vocabulary to Know • NINETEENTH CENTURY – 1800 s • ABOLISH – eliminate; get rid of • INJUSTICE – unfairness; inequality • REFORMER – someone who changes something by correcting faults and removing abuses

TREATMENT OF THE MENTALLY ILL Leader: Dorothea Dix GOAL: better treatment of persons with mental illnesses REASON: the mentally ill were badly treated

TREATMENT OF THE MENTALLY ILL • People believed (early 1800 s) that if people did not contribute to the economy they were useless. • As a result, debtors, children who were offenders, and the mentally ill were often locked up in jails with murderers and thieves. • Dorothea Dix and other reformers worked to change Americans’ ways of thinking about these institutions and their inmates.

TREATMENT OF THE MENTALLY ILL • Dorothea Dix first observed prison conditions while teaching Sunday school at a Boston prison for women in 1841. • She wanted to find out if all the prisons in the state were as appalling. • Over a two-year period, Dix investigated more than 800 prisons, jails, and poorhouses.

TREATMENT OF THE MENTALLY ILL • She found the prisoners were often living in inhumane conditions.

TREATMENT OF THE MENTALLY ILL • Prisoners were often chained to the walls with little or no clothing, often in unheated cells.

TREATMENT OF THE MENTALLY ILL • To Dorothea Dix’s horror, she learned that some of the inmates were guilty of no crime—they were mentally ill persons. Dorothea Dix Hospital, Raleigh, NC

TREATMENT OF THE MENTALLY ILL • Dix decided to appeal to the Massachusetts government for help. • In 1843 she addressed the following report to the state legislature: “I proceed, gentlemen, to call your attention to the present state of Insane Persons confined…, in cages, closets, cellars, stalls, pens! Chained, naked, beaten with rods, and lashed into obedience…”

TREATMENT OF THE MENTALLY ILL • As a result of Dix’s report, Massachusetts passed a law to build mental hospitals where mental illness could be treated as a disease rather than a crime. • By 1852, she had persuaded 11 states to open hospitals for persons with mental illness.

TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT • Leader: American Temperance Union and religious leaders GOAL: to eliminate alcohol abuse REASON: alcohol led to crime, poverty, abuse of family

TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT • Religious leaders stood at the forefront of the war against alcohol. • Public drunkenness was common in the early 1800 s. • Alcohol abuse was widespread, especially in the West and among urban workers.

TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT • Reformers blamed alcohol for: – poverty – breakup of families – crime – insanity

TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT • Another effect of the easy-to-get alcohol was the abuse of wives and children.

TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT • Alcohol abuse was widespread during this time. • Employers often paid part of workers’ wages in rum or whiskey. • Workers took rum breaks similar to today’s coffee breaks!!

TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT • The reformers began a campaign against drinking. • The campaign was known as the temperance movement.

TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT • The American Temperance Society was formed in 1826. • Some: drink less alcohol! • Some: Ban alcohol altogether!

TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT

TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT • Northern and Southern temperance societies used propaganda to win support for their cause. • They held meetings, gave speeches, and distributed pamphlets. • They even sang songs such as “Drink Nothing, Boys, but Water, ” and “Father, Bring Home Your Money Tonight. ”

Vocabulary Terms to Know • TEMPERANCE – restraint when using alcohol; abstinence from alcohol • POVERTY – state or condition of being poor

ABOLITION OF SLAVERY • Leaders: Quakers, Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, William Lloyd Garrison, anti-slavery groups GOAL: end slavery REASON: it is immoral for one person to own another

ABOLITION OF SLAVERY • By 1840, nearly 2. 5 million enslaved people lived in the South. • At one time, the North also had slavery. By 1804 every Northern state legislature had passed laws to eliminate it. • The Southern economy, though, depended on slave labor.

ABOLITION OF SLAVERY • An organized antislavery movement did. ABOLISH not begin until after the. SLAVERY! Revolutionary War. • A religious group, the Quakers, started the abolition movement. Quakers had opposed slavery since colonial times. In 1775 the Quakers organized the first antislavery society.

ABOLITION OF SLAVERY • The American Colonization Society, founded in 1817, wanted to help free African Americans. • The society set up a colony for free African Americans in Liberia, in western Africa. • It was not successful because many African Americans wished to remain in the United States, their home.

ABOLITION OF SLAVERY • In 1831 white abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison founded The Liberator, a Boston anti-slavery newspaper. • In the first issue, Garrison demanded the immediate emancipation, or freeing, of all enslaved persons. • He urged abolitionists to take action without delay.

ABOLITION OF SLAVERY • The North had many prominent African American abolitionists. • Isabella Baumfree = Freed slave • => Sojourner Truth • She spoke against the injustice of slavery.

ABOLITION OF SLAVERY • The most important spokesperson for the cause was Frederick Douglass. • Born into slavery, Douglass secretly taught himself to read, although Southern laws prohibited it. • He escaped from slavery in 1838 and settled in Massachusetts. • He captivated audiences by talking about his life in bondage. • He spoke out against the injustices faced by free African Americans.

ABOLITION OF SLAVERY • Douglass edited an abolitionist journal called the North Star. • Douglass’s speaking and writing abilities so impressed audiences that opponents refused to believe he had been a slave! • In response, he wrote three very moving autobiographies.

ABOLITION OF SLAVERY • The Underground Railroad began c. 1817. • Not an actual railroad but series of safe houses where abolitionists hid runaway slaves as they made their way North.

ABOLITION OF SLAVERY

ABOLITION OF SLAVERY • Harriet Tubman became the most famous African American conductor on the Underground Railroad. • Tubman fled from slavery in 1849. Later she explained why she risked her life to escape: “There was one of two things I had a right to, liberty or death; if I could not have the one, I would have the other. ”

ABOLITION OF SLAVERY • Tubman helped slaves escape on the Underground Railroad. • Led more than 300 enslaved people— including her own parents —to freedom. • Slaveholders offered a reward of $40, 000 for her, dead or alive. • But she managed to escape time after time.

Vocabulary to Know • ABOLITIONIST – a person who works to abolish, or get rid of, slavery • EMANCIPATION – liberation; a setting free

Women’s Rights* Leaders: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth GOAL: obtain equal rights for women, including suffrage, right to own property, and education REASON: women did not have the same rights as men

Women’s Rights • July 19, 1848 Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York. • Declaration that “all men and women are created equal, ” and women should have the right to vote.

Women’s Rights • “We have good cause to be grateful to the slave. In striving to strike his irons off, we found…that we were manacled ourselves. ” • Abby Kelley, women’s activist

Women’s Rights • Susan B. Anthony -a powerful organizer/teacher -abolitionist -wanted African American vote -rights for women: over children and wages

Vocabulary to Know • SUFFRAGE – right to vote; franchise

Education Reform Leaders: Horace Mann GOALS: to educate all Americans REASON: need educated voters Could they really vote, even though they had won the right? “Education does better than to disarm the poor of their hostility toward the rich; it prevents them from being poor. ”

Historical Background • 1647 -- Massachusetts passed a law requiring towns to provide schools for their children. The rest of New England adopted similar laws. The towns, not the states, paid for the schools. • Southerners worked or didn’t have $$ to fund schools.

Education Reform • African American Suffrage: 1870 (15 th amendment) • Women Suffrage: 1920 (19 th amendment) • NEED educated voters! What if they couldn’t read?

Education Reform • Common schools • a. k. a. free, tax-supported, public schools • In the 1830 s few people paid state or federal taxes. As a result, many strongly objected to paying taxes for public schools.

Education Reform • Horace Mann • Mann was especially concerned about poor children who could not afford to go to school. Think: • How would common schools help the U. S. ?

Education Reform • During the 1840 s and 1850 s, the flood of immigrants into the United States helped free public schools gain general acceptance. Many Americans realized that schools were the ideal agents to teach American values to the new arrivals.

Education Reform • Girls’ Schools = morals and manners à Women Only Colleges: seminary, medical school à Still no higher education for African Americans

Quiz yourself: • What were the 5 major reform movements of the 1800 s? • Which reform do you think had the most lasting effect on the civil rights and liberties of Americans? Why?

What were the major reform movements of the 1800 s? • • • Treatment of the mentally ill Temperance movement Abolition of slavery Women’s rights Education

REFORM MOVEMENTS OF THE 1800 s Which reforms of the era had the most lasting effect on the civil rights and liberties of Americans?