1. Reform Era: Temperance, Education, Women’s Suffrage, Prisons and Care for the Mentally Ill, Abolitionism

2. A Spirit of Revival Second Great Awakening: 1790’s-early 1800’s
Revival of religious feeling
Differed from the 1st by introducing the idea that everyone could be forgiven for their sin
Doing good deeds could help you gain salvation
Helped jump start reform movement
Americans believed they could act to make things better
Transcendentalism: the belief that the spiritual world is more important than the physical
People can find truth within themselves through feelings and intuition
Thoreau was a pivotal figure
Civil Disobedience: urged people to peacefully refuse laws they considered unjust
A Spirit of Revival

3. Temperance Movement
Organized because consumption of alcohol significantly increased & caused social problems
Goal was to encourage moderation in the consumption of alcohol
Some groups pressed for complete abstinence
Heavy drinking led to many social problems
Movement was led by churches and religious groups
Propaganda focused on the sufferings of innocent mothers and their children

4. Temperance Unions Groups that pushed for total prohibition
Considered drinking to be morally wrong
Believed it should be prohibited by law
Their demands led to experiments with more strict laws
The Civil War stalled the movement
Temperance was later revisited during the 1890’s-1920’s
Woman's Christian Temperance Union (1874)

5. Annual Consumption of Alcohol 1720-1930

6. Inside Look: Carrie A. Nation (1846-1911)
In 1880, Kansas residents had voted for prohibition, but the law was largely ignored by saloonkeepers.
Saloons operated openly, but Nation would change all that.
First she prayed in front of an establishment in 1890.
She struck at her first saloon on June 1, 1900.
Initially, she used rocks, bricks and other objects for these attacks, then turned to the hatchet.
"I felt invincible. My strength was that of a giant. God was certainly standing by me. I smashed five saloons with rocks before I ever took a hatchet."   – Carrie Nation

7. Education Reform Early Schools
Short-term schools from the colonial era
10-12 weeks per year
Provided basic instruction
Charged a fee along
Schooling was costly and religiously based
Parents were considered primary educators
Families relied on each other and churches for additional learning
Education Reform

8. Horace Mann and “Common Schools”
Reformers argued that INFORMED CITIZENS were needed for our republican GOVERNMENT TO THRIVE
Workers wanted their children to have a chance to pursue the “American dream”
Horace Mann promoted PUBLIC SCHOOLS as the only way to EQUALIZE SOCIETY
He argued that it was impossible that educated people could remain permanently poor
Mann worked for many reforms in public education:
Paid for and run by the public
Inclusive of children from different backgrounds
Taught by well-trained professional teachers

9. Early Public Schools
Despite reformers efforts, public school conditions were poor:
Lacked funding, books, and equipment
Teachers were poorly paid and often poorly prepared
Kids that went beyond the elementary grades went to private academies
Public schools did not become well established until AFTER the Civil War
1800’s Georgia school house

10. Women’s Rights The Industrial Revolution changed the economy
People separated from homes
Home became a refuge
Different roles (jobs) for men and women
STATUS of women remained similar to what it had been during the colonial era
Could not go to college, vote or hold most professional jobs
Had no control over their children or property
Needed husband’s permission to make a will, sign a contract, or file a lawsuit
BUT they were able to work out of the home

11. Organizing the Movement
Many northern women were involved in the Abolitionist Movement
Their involvement in suffrage reform increased after the World Anti-Slavery Convention of 1840
Women were excluded from speaking and were forced to listen from behind a curtain
Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton decided it was time to stand up for women’s rights
They planned their own convention when they returned home
Admission ticket to the Convention

12. The Seneca Falls Women’s Rights Convention, 1848

13. Seneca Falls Convention and Declaration
The women wrote a document modeled after the Declaration of Independence
It went over a list of complaints and ended with a demand for rights
The movement was ridiculed and women did not gain suffrage until 1920
BUT women did gain more rights when it came to property and wages
“. . . The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her He has never permitted her to exercise her inalienable right to the elective franchise. He has compelled her to submit to laws, in the formation of which she has no voice. . .”
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, The Declaration of Sentiments
The first signatures on the Declaration of Sentiments.

14. Legacy of the Movement
Seneca Falls helped create an organized campaign for women’s rights
Reformers made slow progress
New York gave women control over property and wages
Massachusetts and Indiana passed more liberal divorce laws
Some women began their own businesses
However, women’s suffrage took decades
19th Amendment passed in 1920
Only one woman present at the convention lived to vote

15. From Prison to Penitentiary
Colonial prisons were used as holding places
Reformers argued that society would benefit more from rehabilitating prisoners than punishing them
Would also help our economy because prisons could double as workshops for profit
By 1850, most states had adopted the penitentiary system
Penitentiary: prisons used for housing prisoners as punishment and rehabilitation

16. Prisons and the Mentally Ill
Before the 1800’s, the mentally ill were kept at home or imprisoned
By 1815, asylums appeared that separated the mentally ill from prisoners
Dorothea Dix led the reform movement for the mentally ill
Boston school teacher who was asked to teach Sunday school at the East Cambridge House of Correction in 1841
Found a room full of mentally ill women neglected and left without heat during the New England winter

17. Dorothea Dix and Reform
“the present state of insane persons confined within the Commonwealth, in cages, closets, cellars, stalls, pens! Chained naked beaten with rods, and lashed into obedience!”
After her experience, Dix spent two years investigating jails and asylums
Keepers of the institutions called her charges “slanderous lies” but she won support
20 states adopted laws to improve conditions
32 new hospitals were built due to her efforts

18. Abolitionist Movement
Reformers began asking “how can America, ‘the land of the free’, still allow slavery”
The Atlantic Slave trade was outlawed in 1808 BUT the Industrial Revolution and the invention of the cotton gin made both the North and the South dependent on slavery
Abolitionists were people who wanted to end slavery regardless of this economic dependence
Both whites and African Americans were abolitionists

19. Famous Abolitionists
Although the North profited from plantation systems and slavery, some white Northerners joined the Abolitionist Movement
William Lloyd Garrison: began to publish an abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator
Even more rare were Southern abolitionists
Grimke Sisters (Sarah and Angelina): Grew up on a plantation but believed slavery was immoral
Moved north and joined the movement
Spoke out against slavery publically

20. Famous Abolitionists
Some brave abolitionists helped slaves escape to freedom
Harriet Tubman- one of the most famous conductors on the Underground Railroad
an above ground series of escape routes from the South to the North
Made 19 dangerous journeys to free enslaved people
Slave owners offered $40,000 for her capture, but she was never captured, nor did she lose a “passenger”

21. Famous Abolitionists Some escaped slaves also joined the movement
Frederick Douglass: became a lecturer for the Mass. Anti-Slavery Society
People who heard him considered him to be too educated and well-spoken to have ever been a slave
We wrote an autobiography that was an instant best-seller
Started his own newspaper North Star
Sojourner Truth: fled her owners and lived with Quakers who set her free
Drew huge crowds throughout the North as she spoke for abolition
Both were able to change the way Northerners viewed slavery
BUT slavery continued for another 30 years