Reforms What Reforms Do You Feel the Power

Reforms? What Reforms?

Do You Feel the Power? Revivalists get the crowd going

Religious Zeal and New Communities: • Called the “Second Great Awakening” • Americans turn attention to personal reform through religion • Americans were mostly Christian/Protestant and optimistic about economy/democracy • “Revivalists” –powerful speakers whipped up emotion

African Americans and Women Hear the Call to the Lord • Large number of A. A. ’s and women join • African Americans form their own denominations such as the A. M. E. (Denomination of Methodist Episcopal— anti-slavery)

Utopian Communities Spring Up • Utopian = “Ideal or perfect place” • Shakers…Shaking bodies…separate community…led by Mother Ann…faded away • Mormons: Still going strong (Mitt Romney) led by Brigham Young to Salt Lake City (BYU University) • Plural Marriage (multiple wives) Mormons disavowed (rejected) in 1890

Transcendentalism • Finding God, meaning and self by living close to nature • Still relevant today • Henry David Thoreau Wrote “On Walden Pond” while living alone in nature • Ralph Waldo Emerson—leader of Transcendental movement

Emerson Quotes Don’t take notes here • “Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful, for beauty is God's handwriting. ” • “What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you. ” • “The earth laughs in flowers. ”

Moving on to…. Social Reform Time to Drain the Swamp!

Alcohol Abuse Major problem— 7 gallons person/year Women were victims (second class citizens) Caused illness, poverty, violence of all kinds Gave rise to temperance (control/restraint) movement • Immigrants protest being lumped in • Consumption drops dramatically by 1850 • •

Women Take Charge for More reform • Increasing wealth and leisure means women begin to expect more • Demanded education—first college (Oberlin) in 1822 • Women believed it was their duty to influence and guide men

Education Reform • First “free” public schools (elementary) in 1840 • Horace Mann (Mass. Sec. of Ed. ) first statewide school system • Spread across America • South rejected the idea. WHY? ü ü Connected to abolition Hired their own tutors Was a family-not public obligation Feared educated A. A. ’s

Women Slowly Gain Education • Oberlin College (1830’s) accepts African Americans too • First African American women gets MD— Rebecca Lee Crumpler in 1864

Reforming Institutions

From barbarism to rehabilitation • Mass. leads again…result—new hospitals nation wide • Prisons focus on rehabilitation… limit overcrowding, separate children from adults. • Poor houses: Shift to urban life (industrialization) and immigration pressure left many homeless and starving. Even workers with jobs lived in poverty. (Remember “Cannibals All? ”)

Irish Arriving in America

Working Poor: One Paycheck Away From Homelessness

Abolition • American Colonization Society • Quakers were early opponents • William Lloyd Garrison published “The Liberator” • Frederick Douglass fugitive slave/top recruiter to Anti-Slavery Society • Had problems—met with violence and divisions within the movement