1. New Movements in America 1815 - 1850
Chapter 14
New Movements in America

2. I. Immigrants and Urban Challenges
Between – 4 million European immigrants
Irish Potato Famine
1841 – potato blight (fungus) kills Irish potatoes
Irish go to U.S. to escape starvation
Very poor, worked unskilled jobs in cities, low wages
German Revolution
1848 – revolution against harsh rule fails
Germans go to U.S. to escape political persecution
Settled in Midwest on farms and rural areas
Some worked low paying jobs (seamstress, bricklayer, clerks, etc.)

3. Anti-Immigration Movements
Native-born Americans feared losing jobs to immigrants willing to work for less
Nativists: Americans opposed to immigration
1849 – Know-Nothing Party: supported measures making it difficult for foreigners to hold public office

4. Rapid Growth of Cities Cities grow because of jobs and transportation
Middle Class: social and economic level between the wealthy and the poor
Entertainment
Libraries
Theater and concerts
Playing cards
Bowling, boxing, baseball
New York Knickerbockers
1862

5. Urban Problems
City residents lived near workplaces – many lived in tenements: poorly designed apartment buildings that housed large numbers of people
Dangers:
No clean water
No health regulations
Fire
Crime
Ways to remove waste

6. II. American Arts
Transcendentalism: belief that people could transcend, or rise above, material things in life (simplicity and individualism)
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller
Utopian Communities: groups of people who tried to form perfect societies

7. American Romanticism
Great interest in nature, emphasis on individual expression, and rejection of established rules
Artists:
Nathaniel Hawthorne – The Scarlet Letter
Herman Melville – Moby Dick
Edgar Allan Poe – “The Raven”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow – “Paul Revere’s Ride”
Walt Whitman – Leaves of Grass
Washington Irving – Legend of Sleepy Hollow
Emily Dickinson – well known female poet

8. III. Reforming Society
Second Great Awakening: s – Christian renewal movement – led to movements to fix social problems
Temperance Movement: urged people to stop drinking alcohol – thought alcohol caused violence, poverty, and crime

9. Prison Reform
Dorthea Dix: reformed prison cells and treatment of prisoners – created hospitals for mentally ill
Others built reform schools for children

10. Improvements in Education
Common School Movement: children were taught in a common place, regardless of background – created by Horace Mann
Schools and colleges for women opened
Thomas Gallaudet: founded first free school for the hearing impaired in 1817

11. African American Communities
African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church
1835 – Oberlin College becomes first to accept African Americans
Some opportunity to attend schools in North and Midwest – very limited in South –
illegal for slaves to learn to read and write
slaveholders feared revolt

12. IV. The Movement to End Slavery
Abolition: complete end to slavery
Quakers were among the first abolitionists
Abolitionists differed though on treatment of African Americans
Colonization: establish a colony for free slaves in Africa - Liberia

13. Famous Abolitionists
William Lloyd Garrison: published The Liberator – founded the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1833
Sarah and Angelina Grimke: white southerners – wrote Appeal to the Christian Women of the South in 1836

14. Garrison’s 1st Anti-Slavery Speech
I. That the slaves of this country, whether we consider their moral, intellectual or social conditions, are preeminently entitled to the prayers, and sympathies, and charities, of the American people; and their claims for redress are as strong as those of any Americans could be in a similar condition.
II. That, as the free States—by which I mean non-slave-holding States—are constitutionally involved in the guilt of slavery, by adhering to a national compact that sanctions it; and in the danger, by liability to be called upon for aid in case of insurrection; they have the right to remonstrate against its continuance, and it is their duty to assist in its overthrow.
III. That no justificative plea for the perpetuity of slavery can be found in the condition of its victims; and no barrier against our righteous interference, in the laws which authorize the buying, selling and possessing of slaves, nor in the hazard of a collision with slaveholders.
IV. That education and freedom will elevate our colored population to a rank with the white—making them useful, intelligent and peaceable citizens.

15. Famous Abolitionist
Frederick Douglass: escaped slave who learned to read and write – published The North Star
Sojourner Truth: former slave who gave dramatic anti-slavery speeches

16. Frederick Douglass Writings
(1851) “The opinion was ... whispered that my master was my father; but of the correctness of this opinion I know nothing.... My mother and I were separated when I was but an infant.... It [was] common custom, in the part of Maryland from which I ran away, to part children from their mothers at a very early age. "I do not recollect ever seeing my mother by the light of day. ... She would lie down with me, and get me to sleep, but long before I waked she was gone."
(1882) “I have often been asked, how I felt when first I found myself on free soil. And my readers may share the same curiosity. There is scarcely anything in my experience about which I could not give a more satisfactory answer. A new world had opened upon me. If life is more than breath, and the 'quick round of blood,' I lived more in one day than in a year of my slave life.”

17. The Underground Railroad
Network of people who arranged transportation and hiding places for fugitive or escaped slaves
Harriet Tubman: most famous “conductor” – helped over 300 slaves to freedom

18. Opposition to Ending Slavery
Northern workers feared freed slaves would take their jobs
Southerners saw it as a threat to way of life socially and economically
Gag Rule: forbade House of Representatives to discuss anti-slavery petitions – overturned by John Quincy Adams as violation of 1st Amendment

19. V. Women’s Rights
Fighting for African American rights led many female abolitionists to fight for women’s rights
Margaret Fuller: wrote Women in the 19th Century in 1845 – stressed individualism
Critics of women’s rights pointed to traditional roles for women in the home

20. Seneca Fall Convention
First public meeting about women’s rights held in Seneca Falls, NY in 1848
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott
Declaration of Sentiments: detailed beliefs about social injustice toward women – modeled after Declaration of Independence

21. Famous Women’s Rights Leaders
Lucy Stone: gifted women’s rights speaker
Susan B. Anthony: turned women’s rights into a political movement for equality and voting
Elizabeth Cady Stanton: founder of the National Women’s Suffrage (voting) Association