1. America’s History Seventh Edition
James A. Henretta
Rebecca Edwards
Robert O. Self
America’s History Seventh Edition
CHAPTER 11
Religion and Reform,
Copyright © 2011 by Bedford/St. Martin’s

2. I. Individualism: The Ethic of the Middle Class
Ralph Waldo Emerson and Transcendentalism
1. Transcendentalism
2. The Lyceum Movement
Individualism: The Ethic of the Middle Class
Ralph Waldo Emerson and Transcendentalism
Transcendentalism – intellectual movement rooted in Unitarianism; admired European romanticism (Kant, Coleridge) which rejected Enlightenment thinking for a celebration of human passions and mysteries; Unitarians believed in God as a single being (not Father, Son, Holy Spirit like other Protestants); Emerson wanted to explore “individuality”; moved to Concord, MA, after resigning from a ministerial position in Boston; believed people were trapped by traditions; notion of an “open sky” and union with the universe; work was destroying spiritual lives.
The Lyceum Movement – began 1826, a way to reach people through public lectures; fostered discussion; modeled after Aristotle’s public lectures in ancient Greece; attractive to the middle class in the North and the Midwest, not the South; Massachusetts had more than 150 lyceums in 1839; Emerson most popular speaker.

4. I. Individualism: The Ethic of the Middle Class
Emerson’s Literary Influence
1. Thoreau, Fuller, and Whitman
2. Darker Visions
3. Brook Farm
Individualism: The Ethic of the Middle Class
B. Emerson’s Literary Influence
Thoreau, Fuller, and Whitman – Henry David Thoreau built cabin at Walden Pond after his brother’s death, lived there for 2 years alone, published Walden, or Life in the Woods about his search for meaning in the natural world; Margaret Fuller: explored freedom for women, edited The Dial (transcendentalist journal) and published Women in the Nineteenth Century; men and women were capable of a relationship with God; women deserved independence; literary critic for New York Tribune; Walt Whitman: printer, teacher, journalist, newspaper editor, published Leaves of Grass as a collection of poetry celebrating the desire to break from tradition.
Darker Visions – Nathaniel Hawthorne: pessimistic worldview, published The Scarlet Letter (1850) criticizing excessive individualism; Herman Melville: critic of transcendentalist focus on the individual, published Moby Dick (1851) in which a personal quest brings death.
Brook Farm – communal experiment outside of Boston; Emerson, Thoreau, Fuller were all visitors or residents at some point; vibrant intellectual life; economic failure; desired to be self-sufficient but residents were intellectuals with little skill in farming; fire in 1846; disbanded and sold; residents abandoned the idea of a perfect community and sought to work within their communities on education and abolition. 4

5. II. Rural Communalism and Urban Popular Culture
Mother Ann Lee and the Shakers
1. The Communal Movement
2. Shaker Theology
Rural Communalism and Urban Popular Culture
Mother Ann Lee and the Shakers
The Communal Movement – symbols of protest of industrial life in the Northeast and Midwest; experimentation; advocated common ownership of property, unconventional marriage and family life, challenged capitalism and gender roles; Shakers were first successful communal movement; (1770) Ann Lee Stanley (later Mother Ann) in England had vision of herself as Christ on earth; believed sexual lust had been the downfall of Adam and Eve; 1774 brought followers to America; began a church at Albany, NY; known as “Shakers” for dancing during service; Mother Ann died in 1784; followers created their own communities to celebrate her.
Shaker Theology – common ownership of property; strict oversight by church leaders; abstained from alcohol, tobacco, politics, and war; celibacy, no marriage; God was “male and female”; men and women ruled communities; 20 communities mostly in New England, New York, Ohio; highly skilled in agriculture and furniture making; relied on conversion and adoption of orphans to grow communities; died out by 1900.

7. II. Rural Communalism and Urban Popular Culture
Arthur Brisbane and Fourierism
1. Charles Fourier
2. The Phalanxes
Rural Communalism and Urban Popular Culture
B. Arthur Brisbane and Fourierism
Charles Fourier – ( ); French reformer with an eight-stage theory of social evolution; predicted decline of individualism and capitalism; Brisbane leading proponent of Fourier’s teachings in America.
The Phalanxes – cooperative groups of men and women who worked for the community; humane “socialistic” systems; Brisbane described Fourier’s ideas in lectures, in The Social Destiny of Man (1840) and a column in the New York Tribune; communities collapsed over internal disputes, lack of clear vision. 7

8. II. Rural Communalism and Urban Popular Culture
John Humphrey Noyes and the Oneida Community
1. Teachings
2. The Community
Joseph Smith and the Mormon Experience
1. Joseph Smith
2. Brigham Young and Utah
Rural Communalism and Urban Popular Culture
John Humphrey Noyes and the Oneida Community
Teachings – Noyes ( ) modeled after the Shakers; “perfectionism”: Evangelical movement of the 1830s in New York and Ohio (migrant New Englanders), participants believed that the Second Coming of Christ had occurred and people could aspire to sinless perfection in life; Noyes rejected traditional marriage in favor of “complex marriage” in which all members of community were married to each other; rejected monogamy; discouraged multiple pregnancies to give women more freedom; encouraged men and women to redefine cultural notions of male/female gender roles (child care, hairstyles, clothing).
The Community – 1839 established community near Putney, VT; locals disliked complex marriage practices; relocated to Oneida, NY; mid-1850s had more than 200 residents; when the inventor of an animal trap joined the community it became financially self-sustaining; residents began producing silverware (remained a viable company till mid-20th century); Noyes charged with adultery and fled to Canada; residents returned to traditional marriage practices but remained cooperative and productive even without their founder.
Joseph Smith and the Mormon Experience
(Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day-Saints or “Mormons”: utopians with a socially conservative agenda)
Joseph Smith – ( ) raised in New York; believed that he had been chosen to receive a revelation; published The Book of Mormon (1830) telling the story of an ancient civilization that migrated to the West and was visited by Jesus Christ after the Resurrection; encouraged patriarchal authority, frugality, hard work, a church-directed society, moral perfection; struggled to find a home for his church where it would not face harassment; eventually settled in Illinois; argued that a revelation to him had justified polygamy; charged with treason in 1844 when it was believed he was conspiring to build a community in Mexico; murdered in jail along with his brother.
Brigham Young and Utah – led Smith’s disciples; 6,500 left U.S. for Mexico after his death; eventually settled in the Great Salt Lake Valley; created a planned agricultural community; Young named governor when Utah became part of the U.S. in 1850; short Mormon War over the issue of polygamy and possible nullification; those who accepted federal authority would not be prosecuted for polygamy (banned finally in 1896).

9. 1. Describe this family and their living conditions.
(Answer: husband with six wives plus children; spinning wheel, log cabin with chimney, glass window; small but seemingly well-maintained home; appear to live in comfortable, if not cramped, conditions.)
2. How might those outside of the Mormon religion view this family's living situation?
(Answer: Christians and Jews would be troubled by the polygamy being practiced in this family; fears might be expressed for the moral teachings being passed to these children and for the circumstances under which these women were living, sharing one husband; it is likely that non-Mormons would ostracize this family for their non-traditional choices.)
3. Beyond the teachings of their church, how might a Mormon family such as this one justify their non-conformist living situation to those outside the church?
(Answer: given the condition of the home, the ability of this family to have a chimney and glass window, it appears that they were economically stable; the number of adults able to contribute to the household's stability is something that this husband could argue was a benefit to being a polygamist.)

11. II. Rural Communalism and Urban Popular Culture
1. Sex in the City
2. Minstrelsy
3. Immigrant Masses and Nativist Reaction
Rural Communalism and Urban Popular Culture
Urban Popular Culture
Sex in the City – population growing in urban areas; young men and women left rural areas for the cities and found life there very difficult; low wages in factories for men, women worked as domestics where sexual exploitation was common; sex for sale was increasingly common as married men had mistresses and working men went to “bawdy houses”; prostitutes or “public” women advertised in the open; sexual identity was experimented with in the cities without parents having control over young peoples’ daily lives.
Minstrelsy – rat and terrier fights at local halls and performances of traditional theater were popular; most popular were minstrel shows in which white actors performed in blackface; historians have labeled these shows both racist caricature and social criticism; began approx. 1830; John Dartmouth Rice’s character “Jim Crow” was famous in New York City; minstrels also stereotyped Irish immigrants’ drinking of alcohol, made fun of women’s rights activists and elite white men.
Immigrant Masses and Nativist Reaction – immigrants wanted to be viewed as “white”; Irish joined American Catholic Churches and became part of the Democratic Party; nativists wanted to stop immigration; gangs formed in New York City and violence erupted between immigrant groups and native-born white Americans.

12. 1. Describe the action taking place in this painting, The Intelligence Office (1849).
(Answer: seated woman is considering which of the two standing women to hire, man standing at center is awaiting her answer, behind him a sign reads “Agent for Domestics. Warranted Honest,” in the background sit many more women awaiting employment.)
2. What does this image tell us about 19th-century relations between women of different social classes?
(Answer: in general, women had very little power in the 19th century; this image provides an example of one place in which women of wealth did have control – the hiring of domestic help; her husband’s economic standing elevates this woman to a position above the other women in the room; even the man, the only person in this image with any political power in American society, awaits her decision.)

14. III. Abolitionism
Black Social Thought: Uplift, Race Equality, and Rebellion
1. David Walker’s Appeal
2. Nat Turner’s Revolt
Abolitionism
Black Social Thought: Uplift, Race Equality, and Rebellion
David Walker’s Appeal – northern free blacks tried to focus on social uplift; white mobs attacked blacks in northern cities; Walker’s writing was in response to attacks; free blacks from North Carolina, moved to Boston; self-educated; ridiculed religious arguments of slaveholders, justified slave rebellion, warned of a slave revolt if blacks were denied justice much longer; 1830 national convention of free black leaders in Philadelphia; group demanded freedom but refused to endorse Walker’s Appeal.
Nat Turner’s Revolt – Turner a slave in Virginia who taught himself to read; was separated from wife by a new master and had a religious vision; August 1831 led a revolt with relatives and friends; killed 55 whites; he was eventually caught and hanged; Virginia assembly increased slave codes, prohibited anyone from teaching slaves to read, limited movement of black people in the state.

15. 1. Describe the image that accompanies this 1848 reprint of David Walker's Appeal (1829).
(Answer: an African-American man, draped in a robe or sheet, appears to be climbing a mountain, his arms stretched to the sky and the Latin words for "Liberty" and "Justice" before him.)
2. In your opinion, why would the editors choose this image to accompany Walker's writing?
(Answer: Walker's call for slave rebellion was critical of the religious sentiments expressed by southern slaveholders, calling upon them to "repent" for the sin of slavery; this image evokes Christian sentiment with the man appearing to reach to the heavens, wearing clothing and sandals consistent with ancient, perhaps biblical, times.)

16. III. Abolitionism Evangelical Abolitionism
1. William Lloyd Garrison, Theodore Weld, and Angelina and Sarah Grimké
2. The American Anti-Slavery Society
Abolitionism
B. Evangelical Abolitionism
William Lloyd Garrison, Theodore Weld, and Angelina and Sarah Grimké – Garrison, a printer in Massachusetts, founded the New England Anti-Slavery Society, published The Liberator; later established American Anti-Slavery Society with Weld and other abolitionists; appealed to religious people; Weld published The Bible Against Slavery (1837); Grimké sisters raised in South Carolina, converted to Quakerism and moved to Pennsylvania; with Weld published American Slavery as It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses (1839), which sold more than 100,000 copies that year.
The American Anti-Slavery Society – printed thousands of pamphlets using steam-powered presses; “great postal campaign” (1835) sent more than a million pamphlets; utilized fugitive slaves to tell their stories; established Underground Railroad to help fugitives; petitioned Congress (1835) to demand abolition in the District of Columbia, end interstate slave trade and prohibit new slave states. 16

17. 1. In your opinion, does this image condemn or condone the enslavement of black people?
(Answer: condone; depicts the black man as savage.)
2. What specific evidence supports your viewpoint?
(Answer: this man is living in an environment consistent with Americans' perspective of Africa in the 19th century: barely dressed, a weapon in hand, a skull at his feet; a heathen.)
3. What audience would this illustrator be hoping to reach with this depiction of a "Negro"?
(Answer: slaveholders and those who justified slavery with the argument that the black man/woman required the paternal care of a master for guidance and discipline, would accept this image as evidence of what the institution of slavery had saved black people from in Africa.)

19. III. Abolitionism Opposition and Internal Conflict
1. Attacks on Abolitionism
2. Internal Divisions
Abolitionism
Opposition and Internal Conflict
Attacks on Abolitionism – movement was a minority (about 10% of northerners supported); political, social, and economic reasons that slaveholders opposed/attacked the movement; white men and women almost universally opposed “amalgamation” or racial mixing/intermarriage; whites in the North attacked churches, temperance halls, homes, conventions of abolitionists; race solidarity stronger in the South but existed in the North as well; 1836 Congress passed a “gag rule” to keep abolitionists from petitioning; in place until 1844.
Internal Divisions – within the movement activists disagreed; some critical of women addressing mix-gendered audiences and of Garrison’s support for women’s rights; formation of a group with opposing views of women’s rights – “American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society.”

21. IV. The Women’s Rights Movement
Origins of the Women’s Rights Movement
1. Moral Reform
2. Improving Prisons, Creating Asylums, Expanding Education
The Women’s Rights Movement
Origins of the Women’s Rights Movement
Moral Reform – religious women wanted to help other women; “Female Moral Reform Society” in New York City to end prostitution; visited brothels, prayed, sang.
Improving Prisons, Creating Asylums, Expanding Education – Dorothea Dix ( ) emotionally abused by an alcoholic father in Massachusetts; wanted to save children from vice; published author; 1841 began a campaign to improve care for the mentally ill; asylum-building movement to separate the mentally ill from criminals (previously held together in prisons); women supported school movement of Horace Mann in Massachusetts; recruited to be teachers.

22. 1. What details provide clues to the social class of the family portrayed in this lithograph?
(Answer: fancy clothing, fine furnishings, a rug, painting on the wall, man’s top hat and walking stick on chair, indicative of a family of the upper-middle class.)
2. In your opinion, why was this image titled “The Good Husband”?
(Answer: 19th-century Americans would have expected that a family’s stability and economic comfort would be the result of the hard work of the husband; this family’s seeming happiness is attributed to his, the husband’s, efforts in the public sphere.)
3. To whom would the publishers of this image, Currier and Ives, have marketed this lithograph?
(Answer: middle and upper-middle class families who were seeking to achieve this same level of social status and reputation, those who had achieved a similar level of success and believed this image mirrored their own family life.)

23. IV. The Women’s Rights Movement
Abolitionist Women
1. Maria Stewart and Harriet Jacobs
2. Domestic Slavery
The Women’s Rights Movement
Abolitionist Women
Maria Stewart and Harriet Jacobs – Stewart: African American lecturer who spoke about slavery to mixed audiences first in Boston; Jacobs: wrote Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl describing forced sexual relations with her master.
Domestic Slavery – the abolitionist movement taught participating women about society’s view of them as inferior; women’s rights supporting abolitionists called traditional gender roles “domestic slavery”; movement gave them a public voice. 23

24. IV. The Women’s Rights Movement
The Program of Seneca Falls and Beyond
1. Property
2. Separate Spheres
3. Legislative Campaign
The Women’s Rights Movement
The Program of Seneca Falls and Beyond
Property – in 1840s women focused on increasing legal rights, not challenging family structure or roles; many fathers and husbands supported these campaigns; desired to have full control over legal property even if they brought it into marriage.
Separate Spheres – Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott organized Seneca Falls convention; 70 women and 30 men; “Declaration of Sentiments”; made a claim for women in public life and criticized the idea of “separate spheres” (women should remain in the private/home as mothers and wives).
Legislative Campaign – 1851 began an effort to gain voting rights; Susan B. Anthony ( ), a Quaker who argued against women’s dependence on men; led the campaign for voting rights at mid-century.