Reform Movements of the Early 19th Century

Educational reform Public schools began to open, creating a more educated population Teachers began to be specially trained and their salaries increased School attendance became mandatory in most states, at least through elementary school High schools began to become more common

Horace Mann 1796 – 1859 President of the Massachusetts Senate Stepped down to head the new Massachusetts School Board for 12 years Established the standard other states would follow for creating public school systems and teacher-training programs

Calvin Wiley 1819 – 1887 North Carolina’s first school superintendent Championed creating state standards for what should be taught in schools More difficult to get children in school in the South because they were needed for farm work

Women’s Education Schools for educating girls became more common Emma Willard’s Troy Female Seminary in NY (1821) Mary Lyon’s Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in MA (1837) Elizabeth Blackwell: 1st woman to earn a medical degree in the U.S., built hospital for women and children staffed entirely by women

Prison reform Before, inmates were not separated by offense type and prisons included the violent & mentally ill Reformers pushed the idea of rehabilitation rather than punishment States began to build modern prisons (penitentiaries) to house long-term prisoners

Mental health reform Before, the mentally ill received no treatment and were housed in prisons with common criminals The field of “mental health” didn’t exist yet, so they received little medical care and were often tortured

Dorothea Dix 1802 – 1887 Former teacher who took up the plight of the mentally ill, pushing for the construction of mental hospitals Traveled and wrote articles to expose the abuses suffered by the mentally ill Dorothea Dix Hospital in Raleigh was named after her in 1856

Abolitionist Movement Abolitionism = the movement to end slavery Championed primarily by Northerners and women who opposed slavery on moral grounds Abolitionism took on several different forms

Gradualism Earliest form of abolitionism called for the gradual freeing of the slaves – stop importing new slaves, then phase out slavery over time Slave owners would be paid by the state for their lost property South would have time to adjust its economy away from cash-crops

Repatriation Groups like the American Colonization Society began calling for freeing the slaves and sending them back to Africa Liberia was established in West Africa as a home for repatriated slaves from the U.S. Too many slaves lived in the U.S. to be practical, too expensive to transport millions Most slaves at this point had never seen Africa and didn’t want to live there

Abolitionist Leaders

David Walker 1785 – 1830 Free African-American journalist who lived in Boston Published pamphlet “Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World,” calling for a violent rebellion by slaves; it was banned throughout the South and a bounty was placed on his life Died under mysterious circumstances – murder?

William Lloyd Garrison 1805 – 1879 Editor of The Liberator – an abolitionist newspaper in Boston Called for an immediate emancipation of the slaves rather than any kind of gradual end to slavery Founded the American Antislavery Society in 1833 – by 1838 the AAS had over 250,000 members Once burned a copy of the U.S. Constitution to protest its allowance of slavery

Harriet Beecher Stowe 1811 – 1896 Author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a fictional novel which negatively depicted conditions under which slaves lived in the South Made real to many Northerners how brutal the slave system could really be

Sarah & Angelina Grimké Sisters who grew up on a plantation in South Carolina but later became staunch abolitionists Working with their Northern-born husbands, they wrote and gave speeches on the realities of slavery, which they could report on first-hand

Frederick Douglass 1818 – 1895 Born a slave, but escaped at age 20 Became a speaker and writer – his autobiography was a bestseller Convinced many whites that Africans were intelligent and capable of learning (many in the South had made claims that Africans could not learn) Second wife was white, which cost him support from both whites and fellow African-Americans in his later years

Sojourner Truth 1797 – 1883 Born a slave in NY, gained her freedom when NY emancipated all slaves in 1827 Became a famous abolitionist speaker and women’s rights activist following her “Ain’t I a Woman?” speech in 1851

Opposition to Abolitionism Obviously, most whites in the South opposed the abolition movement; even poor whites hoped to one day own slaves Many in the North feared the divisiveness that the movement would cause between North and South; they would rather maintain the status quo and avoid conflict Some in the North feared that freed slaves would all move North, flooding the job market and driving down wages Others feared that if the South’s economy collapsed, it would send the entire nation into a massive economic depression

The Temperance Movement Men who drank often neglected or abused their families Bars and saloons were common in the U.S., as were high rates of alcoholism In 1833, the American Temperance Union was created and rapidly gained support, especially from married women In 1851 Maine became the first state to ban the sale of alcohol; by 1855, 12 other states had as well

Women’s Rights Movement Women’s traditional roles in the North began to change as fewer families worked on farms As women began to take on more social roles and become more active in reform movements, they began to demand more political rights for themselves

Lucretia Mott 1793 – 1880 First American “feminist” to push for women to become more involved in political debate and to have the right to vote Like many women, began her social activism with the abolitionist movement

Elizabeth Cady Stanton 1815 – 1902 Argued for women’s suffrage, the right to divorce, to own property, and to have access to birth control Stanton also strongly supported the abolitionist and temperance movements

Susan B. Anthony 1820 – 1906 Activist who traveled Europe and the U.S. giving 75 – 100 speeches each year for over 40 years Anthony was arrested in 1872 for illegally casting a vote in the presidential election First woman to appear on U.S. currency

Seneca Falls Conference 1848, Seneca Falls. NY Women’s Rights convention organized by Mott and Stanton Issued the “Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions” which added “and women” to the Declaration of Independence’s “all men are created equal” Began the open push for suffrage for women, but voting rights would not come until 1920