Pre-Civil War Reformers

Charles Grandison Finney Famous Preacher Figure in the Second Great Awakening & Revival Movement

Joseph Smith and Brigham Young Mormon leaders Led followers west to escape persecution Settled near Great Salt Lake Utah

Dorothea Dix Prison reformer Promoted hospitals for mentally ill (rather than using prisons)

Horace Mann Educational reformer promoted public schools and teacher training programs

Reverend Lyman Beecher Leader in the Temperance Movement Little or no use of alcohol

Emily Dickinson Poetry reflects loneliness Not publicly recognized during her lifetime

William Lloyd Garrison White abolitionist leader Published “The Liberator”

Frederick Douglass Black abolitionist leader Published “The North Star”

Sojourner Truth Former slave Abolitionist and Women’s Rights activist

Nat Turner Led unsuccessful slave revolt in 1831 Strengthened Southern support to defend slavery

Harriet Tubman Former slave Famous conductor in Underground Railroad Abolitionist public speaker

Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin Book’s impact was one of the causes of the Civil War

Elizabeth Cady Stanton Leader at Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 Co-wrote “The Declaration of Sentiments”

Lucretia Mott Leader at the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 Co-wrote “The Declaration of Sentiments”

Elizabeth Blackwell –1 st female doctor in United States –Opened her own clinic

Margaret Fuller –Advocated that women could have opinions outside the Cult of Domesticity –Advocated for birth control

Samuel F.B. Morse Inventor of telegraph and Morse Code Improved communication and commerce

Elias Howe and I.M. Singer Invented sewing machine with foot treadle Reduced time needed to make shoes and clothes

John Deere Invented steel plow Reduced time needed to plant Opened up more land for farming

Cyrus McCormick Invented mechanical reaper Reduced time required for harvest Made larger farms possible

Robert Fulton Advanced the design of the steamboat Led to improvements in transportation and commerce

Charles Goodyear Invented vulcanized rubber Does not freeze or melt at extreme temperatures

James Fenimore Cooper First major American novelist Wrote about frontier life/adventures The Last of the Mohicans

Washington Irving Father of the American short story “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”

Edger Allen Poe Father of American Mystery writers Known for horror stories “The Tell Tale Heart”

Nathaniel Hawthorne American author Wrote “The Scarlett Letter”

Herman Melville American author famous for novels of the sea Wrote Moby Dick

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow American poet Known for Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes Wrote “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere”

Ralph Waldo Emerson –Chief spokesperson for Transcendentalism (reaction against the scientific rationalism) – wrote Walden Pond

Peter Cooper –1 st American Steam locomotive (1830)

Henry David Thoreau –Protested the Mexican War by refusing to pay his taxes –Wrote Duty of Civil Disobedience "That government is best which governs least"

Walt Whitman Father of “free verse” in poetry Wrote openly about death, sexuality, and equality of races Famous work: Leaves of Grass

John James Audubon -published Birds of America, an art book showing North American birds Promoted the preservation of nature Photo of White Gyrfalcons

George Catlin Documented tribal life of Native Americans White Cloud, Chief of the Iowas