1. Chapter 10 Toward an American Culture

2. The Second Great Awakening
Charles Grandison Finney - Lawyer turned evangelist in 1821
Rochester, New York: 100,000 conversions
Some say he’s the inventor of the professional revivalism
Theology of free will
Later served as president of Oberlin College in Ohio
Spirit of reform predicated on faith
First to admit women and blacks
Camp Meetings
Huge diversity in churches, faiths
William Miller
March 23, 1844
Seventh Day Adventist Church 2

3. The Prophet Joseph Smith
Reaction against weakening of traditional patriarchy
Visions
The Book of Mormon
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
Persecution
Brigham Young and Utah
(c) 2003 Wadsworth Group All rights reserved 12

4. Fine Arts
1820s and 1830s: literature and the arts are viewed more favorably than in previous post-revolutionary era
Relations between nature and civilization
Authors and Poets
Ralph Waldo Emerson, American transcendentalist
Henry David Thoreau
James Fenimore Cooper
Walt Whitman
(c) 2003 Wadsworth Group All rights reserved 5

5. Novels and the Penny Press
Revolution in print
Explosive growth in availability of reading material
Proliferation of newspapers: by 1790, 90 newspapers in colonies
Penny newspapers and dime novels
Focused on scandals; sold sensationalism
Novels, read mostly by women
Working class popular culture
Melodramatic contest between good and evil
Women writers de facto Evangelical ministers
Focused on domestic topics; “saccharine”
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Nathaniel Hawthorne, “damned mob of scribbling women” 18

6. Horace Greeley: New York Tribune
Led revulsion against the sensationalist newspapers
Godey’s Lady’s Book ( )
Sarah Josepha Hale
Editor
Women should devote themselves to their housework as if it were a fine art
Poet – “Mary Had a Little Lamb”
Campaigned for Thanksgiving to be a national holiday
Godey's Lady's Book
January, 1857

7. KINDRED SPIRITS Asher B. Durand
Hudson River School of Painting
KINDRED SPIRITS Asher B. Durand

8. THE OXBOW by Thomas Cole

9. "Hudson River Landscape" Thomas Doughty

10. Natural Bridge, Virginia
Frederic Church

11. Sports An American Theater Urban working-class neighborhoods
Bachelor sub-culture formed
“Blood” sports
Cock fights, dog fighting
Boxing (Irish and German immigrants)
An American Theater
Theaters separate to appeal to rival audiences
Most popular form of theater: blackface minstrel shows:
(c) 2003 Wadsworth Group All rights reserved 14

12. Southern Culture Southern cultural conservatism was rooted in:
Religion
The family
Southern Entertainment
Fewer commercial entertainments
Showboats along river towns
Horse racing
(c) 2003 Wadsworth Group All rights reserved 20

13. Race, Citizenship, and Rights
Racism in the 1800s changed from the colonial period
19th Century attitudes:
Blacks hopelessly inferior
Discrimination against blacks intensified
Racial violence in cities
Antislavery societies formed in the 1830s
Political, but not social equality
American Colonization Society (1816)
Free blacks
Low paying jobs
Established own businesses and institutions
By 1800s, equal rights shifted to all white men
Move towards mass democracy
Free, white, and twenty-one