2nd Great Awakening and Utopias
US in 1840
ECONOMIC CHANGE Population growth (labor, consumers) Expansion of Transportation (effect) Growth of Industry (new inventions, manufacturing, factory system) Growth of Corporations (investment) Changes in farming (effects)
Fast Pace of Change Leads To Concerns About Society Search for more meaning in life Reaction against the Enlightenment (scientific rationalism) of the 1820’s & 1830’s Industrial process creates reaction against “mechanical” work/society
1. The Second Great Awakening “Spiritual Reform From Within” [Religious Revivalism] Social Reforms & Redefining the Ideal of Equality Temperance Education Abolitionism Asylum & Penal Reform Women’s Rights
“The Benevolent Empire”: 1825 - 1846
The “Burned-Over” District in Upstate New York
Second Great Awakening Revival Meeting
“soul-shaking” conversion Charles G. Finney (1792 – 1895) The ranges of tents, the fires, reflecting light…; the candles and lamps illuminating the encampment; hundreds moving to and fro…;the preaching, praying, singing, and shouting,… like the sound of many waters, was enough to swallow up all the powers of contemplation. “soul-shaking” conversion R1-2
The Mormons (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) 1823 Golden Tablets 1830 Book of Mormon 1844 Murdered in Carthage, IL Joseph Smith (1805-1844)
The Mormon “Trek”
Shaker Meeting
Shaker Simplicity & Utility
2. Utopian Communities – Goal is to create ideal societies
Demands of Community Life Difficulties in Secular Utopian Communities Individual Freedom Demands of Community Life spontaneity self-fulfillment discipline organizational hierarchy
John Humphrey Noyes (1811-1886) The Oneida Community New York, 1848 Humans were no longer obliged to follow the moral rules of the past. all residents married to each other. carefully regulated “free love.” John Humphrey Noyes (1811-1886)
“Village of Cooperation” Robert Owen (1771-1858) Utopian Socialist “Village of Cooperation”
Original Plans for New Harmony, IN
New Harmony, IN
Transcendentalist and Romanticism in American History America’s First Notable Writers
Transcendental Beliefs Intuition, not reason, is the highest human faculty Simplicity is the path to spiritual greatness (rejected materialism) Nature is a source of truth & inspiration Believed humanity is godlike and saw a world in which only good existed Everyone can rise above (transcend) evil Laws and rules are not important Non-conformity, individuality, and self-reliance A man should choose for himself what is right and wrong by trusting his intuition
The Influence of Romanticism Self-examination The celebration of individualism Extolling the beauties of nature and humankind Focus on the emotional and intuitive, rather than the rational
The Oversoul “In the faces of men and women I see God” – Walt Whitman Nature The Oversoul “The groves were God’s first temples” – William Cullen Bryant Individual God “In the faces of men and women I see God” – Walt Whitman
The Transcendentalists American Transcendentalism began with the formation in 1836 of the Transcendental Club in Boston Magazine: The Dial Brook Farm: communal living experiment Ralph Waldo Emerson Margaret Fuller Henry David Thoreau Bronson Alcott
Brook Farm West Roxbury, MA George Ripley (1802-1880) Brook Farm West Roxbury, MA
Major Transcendentalist Works Ralph Waldo Emerson “Nature” 1836 “Self-Reliance” 1841 Henry David Thoreau Walden 1854 “Civil Disobedience” 1847
Contemplate “…the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude…” – Emerson Is greatness nonconformity??? Does simplicity lead to happiness? Does the natural world lead to greatness and happiness or can that be found artificially?
A Transcendentalist Critic: Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) Their pursuit of the ideal led to a distorted view of human nature and possibilities: * The Blithedale Romance One should accept the world as an imperfect place: * Scarlet Letter * House of the Seven Gables