2nd Great Awakening Leads to Reform It’s time for a change.

2nd Great Awakening? Ya, there was a 1st Great Awakening, it happened in the early 1700’s….let’s just move on…..

2nd Great Awakening Charles Grandison Finney is often given credit for starting this movement. Finney was a preacher who went around the country spreading the gospel.

2nd Great Awakening In the early 1800’s, Americans were very much focused on the “individual.” This became a very prominent mindset during the Jackson era. Religion started to focus more on the individual as well.

Revivals Revivals were huge gatherings that lasted up to 4 or 5 days. At revivals people spent their time praying, hearing sermons, and talking about their faith. These were responsible for the growth of American Religion.

Everyone belongs to God Churches were very democratic and there was a belief that everyone belonged to God, even enslaved African Americans. In the South, slaves would worship along side their masters. Black churches began to pop up in the North.

Transcendentalism This was another movement, although not religious. It was started by Ralph Emerson, and brought to prominence by Henry David Thoreau.

Thoreau Thoreau was very concerned with the individual and our relationship with nature. He spent two years living by a pond by himself.

Civil Disobedience Thoreau believed strongly in the individual conscious. He did not believe that America should have slavery, or go to war with Mexico (we study that next week), so he didn’t pay taxes. He went to jail.

Utopian Communities These were communities that were set up sort of “outside” society. They were started by Transcendentalists who wanted to promote a simple form of life. They usually failed after two years.

Prison Reform Dorthea Dix was the leader in this movement. She visited many prisons and found mistreatment of inmates. She also found that many mentally ill people were imprisoned.

Effects She fought to improve prison conditions, and had some success. She also fought to get states to set up hospitals for the mentally ill and work on rehabilitating them rather than imprisoning them.

School Reform Very little organized education was taking place in America in the early 1800’s. Wealthy people sent their sons to private schools, but that was about it.

School Reform This movement, began by Thomas Mann, believed that public schools should be taxpayer funded. Mann believed educating our young was essential to maintaining our republic. This angered wealthy people because they didn’t want to pay for schools their kids wouldn’t go to.

School Reform Success By the 1850’s every state had some sort of publicly funded elementary schools.