1. Life in Antebellum America

2. Racial Tensions in Northern Cities
Black underclass
Irish immigrants
Philadelphia Riots of 1834, 1844
Why the tension between immigrants and free blacks?

3. Free Blacks in the North
Rights actually became fewer as time went on
1840: 93% couldn’t vote
Little educational opportunity
Prudence Crandall’s CT school burned when she admitted black children

4. Black Americans in 1850

5. Free Blacks in 1850

6. Middle Class Life
The middle class increasingly set itself apart from the working class with an elaborate set of social norms and etiquette.

7. Middle Class Life in the Antebellum Era
Industrialization led to the formation of a new middle class.
These were people who did not labor with their hands and attained a certain amount of wealth.
They developed a new culture and way of life distinct from the working class.

8. Manners
An elaborate set of manners was created to set the new middle class apart.
Numerous books and pamphlets detailing proper manners and etiquette were published.
With a circulation of 150,000 by 1860, “Editress” Sarah Josepha Hale’s magazine was the most widely-read in America.

9. Gender Roles Gender roles were changing and becoming more defined.
Men and women were believed to have different, but equally important, talents.
Men: strong, decisive, intelligent, leadership
Women: “innately pious, virtuous, unselfish, modest”
The concept of Domesticity became influential.
How was this related to the industrial revolution?

10. Domesticity Men and Women operate in different “spheres.”
Men in public sphere
Women in home sphere

11. Children
Childhood considered a separate and unique stage in life and celebrated
Education, rather than work
Declining birth rate

12. Women’s Sphere Home, children, religion, family morality
Women were considered innately pious and virtuous, so they were associated with morality.
Women came to be seen as the moral guardians of society.

13. Men’s Sphere Outside the home: economics, politics
Logical, rational, leaders, better suited for education

14. Expanding Education: Education for Women
The numbers of literate and educated women rose dramatically throughout the 19th Century.
Women’s literacy rate = Men’s literacy rate by 1850
US first country in world to accomplish this!
Schools for girls/women not uncommon in Antebellum era
Women made up 1/3 of college students by 1880

15. Pioneering Girls’/Women’s Education
Emma Willard founded Troy Female Seminary, a renowned secondary school for girls in 1821.
Oberlin College became the nation’s first co-ed college in 1837.