2.  Most in America during the colonial era believed in Predestination. ◦ Predestination = the belief that God decided in advance who would attain salvation after death.  “What can I do to be saved?”  In the early 1800s, the Second Great Awakening began.  A religious movement whose leaders stressed Free Will rather than Predestination. ◦ Free Will = the belief that individuals choose to save their souls by their actions.  Predestination = God chooses me.  Free Will = I choose God.

3.  Preachers held Revivals to stir up religious feelings.  Charles Grandison Finney was a powerful figure of the Second Great Awakening.  Taught that individual salvation was the first step toward “the complete reformation of the whole world. ◦ Teachings such as this inspired new efforts to improve and reform society.

5.  Dorthea Dix turned her passion during this time to the “outsiders” in society. ◦ Prisoners and the mentally ill.  On a visit to a prison for women in Boston, she realizes that some prisoners are mentally ill.  They were kept in small, dark, unheated cells. ◦ “Lunatics” cant feel the cold.  Begins to see this trend in many states.

6.  Her research and reports convinced the Massachusetts State Legislature to fund a new mental hospital. ◦ “I proceed, gentlemen, briefly to call your attention to the present state of Insane Persons confined… in cages, closets, cellars, stalls, pens! Chained, naked, beaten with rods, and lashed into obedience.”  Many states follow Massachusetts and enact reforms. ◦ The mentally ill will now be treated as patients rather than criminals.

8.  Men, women, and children were often crammed into a cold, damp room. ◦ 5/6 prisoners in northern jails  debtors. ◦ Hard to make money while locked up in jail.  Prison conditions included: ◦ Overcrowding, low food supply, hygiene, disease, poor treatment, etc…  Dorothea Dix and others begin to call on state legislatures to make changes.

9.  Changes made to the prison system: ◦ States began to build cells with only 1-2 inmates. ◦ Cruel punishments in prison were banned. ◦ People convicted of minor crimes received shorter sentences.  Over time, states stopped treating debtors as criminals.

11.  Alcohol abuse in the early 1800s was widespread. ◦ In 1810, males over the age of 15 consumed on average 7.1 gallons of alcohol per year.  4.3 = hard liquor and 2.8 = beer/cider  Views on alcohol in 1800s ◦ Before breakfast, 11a.m., 4 p.m., health reasons ◦ Alcohol was provided at political rallies, weddings, funerals.  Most prominent among men, but was consumed by women and children as well.

12.  Temperance = the practice of self-control, abstention, and moderation. ◦ One of the four Cardinal Virtues of Greek Philosophy.  Temperance groups began a campaign against alcohol in the late 1820s. ◦ Some urged people to drink less, while others wanted to end drinking altogether. ◦ Religious, scientific, and social roots of temperance.  In 1851, Maine passed a law banning the sale of alcohol. ◦ 8 more states followed. (Most were later repealed.)

14.  In 1800, very few children attended school. ◦ Massachusetts was the only state that required free public schools. ◦ Very few teachers; poorly trained. ◦ Ages in grade levels were not standardized.  As more men won the right to vote (Jackson), reformers looked to improve education. ◦ Argued that it was absolutely necessary for voting citizens to be educated.

15.  In 1814, New York State passed a law requiring local governments to set up tax- supported school districts.  In 1827, Horace Mann became the head of the Massachusetts Board of Education.  Under his leadership, Massachusetts: ◦ Built new schools, extended the school year, and raised teachers’ pay.

17.  By the 1850s, most northern states had set up free tax-supported elementary schools.  Schools in the South didn’t improve as quickly.  Schooling in both regions usually ended in the 8 th grade.

18.  With the exception of a few cities, African Americans in the North did not attend school. ◦ The schools they did go to received lee money than the white schools. ◦ Many African American men and women opened their own schools.  In the 1830s, Prudence Crandall began a school for African American girls. ◦ A mob eventually destroyed the school.  In 1854, Pennsylvania chartered the first college for African American men.

19.  Reformers sought to improve education for people with disabilities.  Thomas Gallaudet set up a school for the deaf in Hartford, CT in 1817.  Samuel Gridley Howe founded the first American school for the Blind in 1832. ◦ Used raised letters to help enable students to read with their fingers.

22.  By the mid-1800s, women had little to no political or legal rights. ◦ When a women was married, her husband became owner of all of her property. ◦ Her wages belonged to her husband. ◦ Husbands could hit their wives as long as they didn’t seriously injure them.

23.  Many women got their start in reform movements in the Abolition Movement.  Angelina and Sarah Grimke were the daughters of a South Carolina slaveholder. ◦ Moved to Philadelphia to work for abolition.  Many opposed to women speaking in public like the Grimke Sisters did.  “Whatsoever it is morally right for a man to do, it is morally right for a woman to do.”

25.  Born a slave named Isabella in New York. ◦ Vowed to sojourn(travel) across the country to speak the truth against slavery, she changed her name.  Ridiculed the idea that women were inferior to men by nature.  “I have as much muscle as any man, and can do as much work as any man. I have plowed and reaped and husked and chopped and mowed, and can any man do more than that?”

27.  Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.  Abolitionists who now fought for women's’ rights.  In 1840, they attended the World Antislavery Convention in London. ◦ Women could not take an active part in the proceedings. ◦ Female delegates had to sit behind a curtain.  When they returned, both took up the cause of women’s rights with a renewed energy.

29.  200 women and 40 men attended the convention. ◦ Held to draw attention to the problems women faced.  Delegates approved the Declaration of Sentiments, which proclaimed: ◦ “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal.”  Voted for resolutions that demanded equality for women at work, school, and church, and that they be allowed to vote.  The convention is remembered as the start of the organized campaign for women’s rights.

30.  In the years following the convention, changes occurred: ◦ New York passed laws allowing married women to keep property and wages, ◦ Opportunities in education and the workplace began to arise.  Many men and women opposed the women’s rights movement.

32.  This era saw a massive leap in the arts in the U.S. ◦ The Hudson River School, U.S. Poets, American Authors, etc…  In New England, a special type of writers and thinkers emerged.  Called themselves Transcendentalists. ◦ They believed that the most important truths in life transcended human reason. ◦ Transcend = to go beyond

33.  Transcendentalists valued the spark of deeply felt emotions more than reason.  believed that each person should live up to the divine possibilities within. ◦ This thinking influenced many transcendentalists to support social reform.  Influential Transcendentalists: ◦ Ralph Waldo Emerson ◦ Henry David Thoreau

35.  Influential Transcendentalists:  Literature: ◦ Ralph Waldo Emerson – Essayist, Lecturer, Poet ◦ Henry David Thoreau - Author ◦ Emily Dickenson- Poet ◦ Walt Whitman – Poet – Leaves of Grass ◦ Nathaniel Hawthorne – The Scarlett Letter ◦ Edgar Allan Poe – Author, Poet

37.  Influential Transcendentalists:  Art: ◦ John James Audubon ◦ Hudson River School – American landscape paintings.  Discovery, Exploration, and Settlement

39.  Influential Transcendentalists:  Music: ◦ Slave spirituals, Gospel music ◦ “Battle Hymn of the Republic”