1. Chapter 9.2: Movements for Reform
“Working for Reform”
Chapter 9.2: Movements for Reform

2. Objectives: What motivated temperance reformers?
Why did some women believe it was important to become involved in reform movements?
How did educational opportunities change in the early 1800s?
How and why did reformers work to improve prisons and other institutions?

3. The Second Great Awakening
“Spiritual Reform From Within” [Religious Revivalism]
Social Reforms & Redefining the Ideal of Equality
Temperance
Education
Abolitionism
Asylum & Penal Reform
Women’s Rights

4. Temperance Reformers
Wanted to reduce criminal behavior, family violence, and poverty
Desired a more disciplined workforce
Wanted to preserve the family
Led largely by clergy, it first focused on drunkeness and did not oppose moderate drinking
The American Temperence Society was founded in 1826, taking voluntary abstinence as its goal

5. Temperance Leaders Lucretia Mott (1793-1880) Lyman Beecher (1775-1863)
Neal Dow ( )

6. The Drunkard’s Progress From the first glass to the grave, 1846

7. Results!!
During the next decade approximately 5000 local temperance societies were founded
As the movement gained momentum, annual per capita consumption of alcohol dropped sharply

8. Life for 19th Women Unable to vote. Legal status of a minor.
Single/Widow --> could own her own property.
Married --> no control over her property or her children.
Could not initiate divorce.
Couldn’t make wills, sign a contract, or bring suit in court without her husband’s permission.

9. Women and reform
Many women believed that they had a duty to become involved in reform since they were expected to instill values of good citizenship in their children and serve as the moral voice in their household-
Cult of Womanhood.

10. Educational Reform Expansion of public education
Starts in Massachusetts-1830s
Horace Mann was leader-Secretary of State
Creates a state board of education and adopted a minimum-length school year
Provided for training of teachers
Expanded the curriculum to include subjects such as history and geography
Opening of first public high school
Expansion of opportunities for women and African Americans to receive a college education

11. Reform of Jails and Prisons
Reformers created the penitentiary system, built more prisons, and established reform schools to deal with the imprisonment of juveniles with adult offenders.

12. Poorhouses
Reformers established a network of poorhouses, where the able-bodied poor would be required to work and where poor children could be educated.

13. Mental Hospitals
Rehabilitation hospitals were established to get mentally ill people out of jails and poorhouses.
Dorothea Dix, a Boston schoolteacher advocated for state-supported asylums for the mentally ill.
She attracted much attention to the movement by her report detailing the horrors to which the mentally ill were subjected-being chained, kept in closets, beaten with rods in prisons with criminals.
In response to her efforts, 28 states created and maintained mental institutions by 1860.