1. Religion and Reform

2. Agenda
1. Bell Ringer: How do Jackson’s ideas lead to the Panic of 1837? (5)
2. Presidency of William Henry Harrison and John Tyler (8)
3. Quick Compare and Contrast Tyler vs. Harrison (10)
4. Notes: Religion and Reform (25)
5. Examining Literature of Transcendentalists (15)
6. Comparing Education of the Period to Education today (McGuffey’s Reader Analysis) (20 minutes)
HW: Finish Vocabulary

3. Second Great Awakening
Religion experienced a revival along with Jacksonian Democracy.
Religious ideas promoted individualism and responsibility.
Revivalism- a religious gathering with impassioned preaching.
Christianity also brought to slaves living on the plantations.
Slaves had limited access to religion, and some felt it would promote too many ideas of freedom
African Methodist Episcopal Church promoted an anti-slavery message among free blacks

4. Transcendentalism
A movement that emphasized living a simple life and celebrated nature and personal emotion.
Literary movement promoted American ideas of optimism, freedom and self-reliance.
Walden Pond, Henry David Thoreau
It promoted civil disobedience, Thoreau did not agree with the government so he did not pay taxes.

5. Utopian Communities
Brook Farm, New Harmony are examples of utopian societies.
Utopia, a perfect existence.
Do we have utopias today?
Education Reform
School at the time didn’t go beyond the age of 10, many were in the same room for all years of school.
Horace Mann, “IF we do not prepare children to become good citizens… if we do not enrich their minds with knowledge, then our republic must go down to destruction, as others have gone before it.”
Publicly funded Elementary Schools.

6. Education and Prison Reform
Tocqueville visits prisons and asylums and writes about them in Democracy in America
Prisons had severe control over individuals. Prisoners were chained, naked, and whipped with metal rods.
Dorothea Dix led the effort to promote rehabilitation.