GoalLeadersImpact Important Info Second Great Awakening Hospital & Prison Reform Temperance Movement Education Reform Abolitionist Movement Women’s Rights

GoalLeadersImpact Important Info Labor Movement Child Labor

The Second Great Awakening During the colonial era, people believed in predestination, which meant that God knew in advance who would be saved and who wouldn’t. In the early 1800s, a religious movement known as the Second Great Awakening led people to believe that the could choose their own destiny. People could save their souls by their own actions. Preachers held religious revivals, or huge outdoor meetings. Thousands of people attended and were “saved”. An Outdoor Revival Charles Grandison Finney, minister

The Second Great Awakening Goal: Religious Revival Leaders: Charles Grandison Finney Impact: Encouraged spirit of reform (change)!

The Reforming Spirit Why would society want to reform prisons? Prison reform was just one example of the reforming spirit that gripped our country in the mid 1800s. Social reform is an organized attempt to improve what is unjust or imperfect in a society. People began to ask why women and slaves did not have equal rights in American society.

Hospital & Prison Reform Goal: Improve conditions in hospitals and prisons Leader: Dorothea Dix Impact: New mental hospitals and prisons built. Cruel punishment was outlawed and debtors were no longer treated like criminals.

The Temperance Movement Goal: End Alcohol Abuse (alcohol was leading to abuse and problems on the job) Leaders: Women! Impact: a movement to end alcohol abuse and some states banned the sale of alcohol

Education Reform Goal: Improve Education. In 1800, few Americans attended school and only Massachusetts had free public school. Teachers were poorly trained and paid very little. Leaders: Horace Mann Impact: More money for education. Teachers pay was raised. Three colleges were created to train teachers. Also, educational opportunities were created for students with disabilities.

Opposing Slavery When Thomas Jefferson wrote “all men are created equal” in the Declaration of Independence, most people believed that African Americans were not included. In the 1800s, more and more people began to think differently. The abolitionist movement began in religious circles during the Second Great Awakening. The American Colonization Society, proposed to end slavery by setting up an independent colony in Africa for freed slaves. President Monroe helped to set up the colony of Liberia for this purpose. The sad truth is that many people did not believe that whites and blacks could live peacefully together in American society.

Abolitionist Movement Grows A growing number of abolitionists wanted to end slavery completely in the United States. Free African Americans played an important role in the abolitionist movement. Some tried to end slavery through lawsuits and petitions. Abolitionists newspapers were aimed at turning public opinion against slavery. The best known African American abolitionist was Frederick Douglas, an escaped slavery who became a powerful public speaker and leading abolitionist. The most outspoken white abolitionist was William Lloyd Garrison, who launched The Liberator, an influential abolitionist newspaper. Frederick Douglas

The Abolitionist Movement Goal: To End Slavery Leaders: Harriet Tubman, William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, The Grimke Sisters Impact: Thousands of slaves were saved via the Underground Railroad. Slavery was abolished in the North and eventually in the South after the Civil War.

The Underground Railroad Some abolitionists formed the Underground Railroad. It was not a real railroad, but a network of black and white abolitionists who secretly helped slaves escape to freedom in the North and Canada. “Conductors” guided runaways to “stations” where they could spend the night in safety. The most famous conductor was Harriet Tubman, who had escaped slavery herself and went back 19 times to help lead over 300 slaves to freedom. Slave owners offered a $40,000 for her capture, dead or alive.

Women’s Rights Women had few political and legal rights in the 1800s. They could not vote or hold office. When a woman married, her husband became the owner of all of her property. If a woman worked, her husband got all of her wages. A husband could even legally hit his wife as long as he did not seriously injure her. Many women who had joined the abolitionist movement also became involved in the women’s rights movement. Perhaps the most famous women’s rights leaders were Sojourner Truth, Lucretia Mott, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. These women were powerful public speakers and fearless crusaders for equal rights for women. Lucretia Mott Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Seneca Falls Convention The leading women’s rights advocates, Mott and Stanton, planned on holding a women’s rights meeting in Seneca Falls, New York. About 200 women and 40 men attended. The delegates approved a Declaration of Sentiments, which proclaimed that “all men and women are created equal.” The attendees voted on resolutions demanding equality in the workforce, at school, at church, and suffrage. The Seneca Falls Convention marked the beginning of the women’s rights movement. In the nine years following, laws were passed in New York allowing married women to keep their own property and wages. But the struggle would continue.

Women’s Rights Goal: Equal rights for women Leaders: Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Sojourner Truth Impact: It was a long struggle, but eventually schools were open for women and because of this women were able to get jobs they had been denied before. In 1920, women finally were granted suffrage (the right to vote).

American Art and Literature American Painters: Painters such as Thomas Cole and Asher B. Durand founded the Hudson River School, where they painted American landscapes and captured the lives of ordinary people. American painters at this time served the important purpose of capturing this era in history. 'The Ox Bow' of the Connecticut River near Northampton, Massachusetts, by Thomas Cole

American Art and Literature American Writers: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was the favorite American poet in the mid 1800s. He wrote the famous “Paul Revere’s Ride.” Other poets such as Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson captured American life in their poetry. James Fennimore Cooper and Washington Irving were famous novelists of the day. Cooper wrote The Last of the Mohicans and Irving wrote The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Herman Melville wrote Moby Dick and Nathanial Hawthorne wrote The Scarlet Letter during this time. Many best selling writers at this time were women!

American Art and Literature In New England, a small but influential group of writers emerged. They called themselves transcendentalists because they believed that the most important truths in life went beyond human reason. They valued emotion over reason and they believed that each individual should live up to their own inner possibilities. This thinking was also called individualism. Leading transcendentalists were Ralph Waldo Emerson who urged people to follow their “inner light” and Henry David Thoreau, who urged people to shun technology and live close to nature. Thoreau was also a great believer in civil disobedience, or the idea that people have a right to disobey unjust laws. His ideas have been followed by Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.