1. Reforms? What Reforms?

2. Revivalists get the crowd going
Do You Feel the Power?
Revivalists get the crowd going

3. Religious Zeal and New Communities:
Called the “Second Great Awakening”
Americans turn attention to personal reform through religion
Americans were mostly Christian/Protestant and optimistic about economy/democracy
“Revivalists” –powerful speakers whipped up emotion

4. African Americans and Women Hear the Call to the Lord
Large number of A.A.’s and women join
African Americans form their own denominations such as the A.M.E. (Denomination of Methodist Episcopal—anti-slavery)

5. Utopian Communities Spring Up
Utopian = “Ideal or perfect place”
Shakers…Shaking bodies…separate community…led by Mother Ann…faded away
Mormons: Still going strong (Mitt Romney) led by Brigham Young to Salt Lake City (BYU University)
Plural Marriage (multiple wives) Mormons disavowed (rejected) in 1890

6. Transcendentalism
Finding God, meaning and self by living close to nature
Still relevant today
Henry David Thoreau Wrote “On Walden Pond” while living alone in nature
Ralph Waldo Emerson—leader of Transcendental movement

7. Emerson Quotes Don’t take notes here
“Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful, for beauty is God's handwriting.”
“What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you.”
“The earth laughs in flowers.”

8. Moving on to….Social Reform Time to Drain the Swamp!

9. Alcohol Abuse Major problem—7 gallons per person/year
Women were victims (second class citizens)
Caused illness, poverty, violence of all kinds
Gave rise to temperance (control/restraint) movement
Immigrants protest being lumped in
Consumption drops dramatically by 1850

10. Women Take Charge for More reform
Increasing wealth and leisure means women begin to expect more
Demanded education—first college (Oberlin) in 1822
Women believed it was their duty to influence and guide men

11. Education Reform First “free” public schools (elementary) in 1840
Horace Mann (Mass. Sec. of Ed.) first statewide school system
Spread across America
South rejected the idea. WHY?
Connected to abolition
Hired their own tutors
Was a family-not public obligation
Feared educated A.A.’s

12. Women Slowly Gain Education
Oberlin College (1830’s) accepts African Americans too
First African American women gets MD—Rebecca Lee Crumpler in 1864

13. Reforming Institutions

14. From barbarism to rehabilitation
Mass. leads again…result—new hospitals nation wide
Prisons focus on rehabilitation… limit overcrowding, separate children from adults.
Poor houses: Shift to urban life (industrialization) and immigration pressure left many homeless and starving. Even workers with jobs lived in poverty. (Remember “Cannibals All?”)

15. Irish Arriving in America

16. Working Poor: One Paycheck Away From Homelessness

17. Abolition American Colonization Society Quakers were early opponents
William Lloyd Garrison published “The Liberator”
Frederick Douglass fugitive slave/top recruiter to Anti-Slavery Society
Had problems—met with violence and divisions within the movement