1. Religion & Reform,
K.C. 4.1 Part III
Mr. Buttell WBHS APUSH

2. (European Romanticism)
Transcendentalism
(European Romanticism)
Liberation from understanding and the cultivation of reasoning.”
“Transcend” the limits of intellect and allow the emotions, the SOUL, to create an original relationship with the Universe.

3. Transcendentalist Thinking
Argue for a mystical and intuitive way of thinking to discover one’s inner self
Challenged materialism of society – artistic expression more important than pursuit of wealth
They instinctively rejected all secular authority and the authority of organized churches and the Scriptures, of law, or of conventions

4. (European Romanticism)
Transcendentalism
(European Romanticism)
“Therefore, if man was divine, it would be wicked that he should be held in slavery, or his soul corrupted by superstition, or his mind clouded by ignorance!!”

5. Resistance to Civil Disobedience (1849) “The American Scholar” (1837)
Transcendentalist Intellectuals/Writers Concord, MA
Ralph Waldo
Emerson
Henry David
Thoreau
Nature (1832)
Resistance to Civil Disobedience (1849)
Self-Reliance (1841)
Walden (1854)
“The American Scholar” (1837)

6. The Transcendentalist Agenda
Give freedom to the slave.
Give well-being to the poor and the miserable.
Give learning to the ignorant.
Give health to the sick.
Give peace and justice to society.

7. A Transcendentalist Critic: Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)
Their pursuit of the ideal led to a distorted view of human nature and possibilities: * The Blithedale Romance
One should accept the world as an imperfect place: * Scarlet Letter * House of the Seven Gables

8. The Hudson River School:
#1: “IN NATURE’S WONDERLAND”  Thomas Dougherty, 1835
He was one of the earliest American artists to use small figures dwarfted by the landscape  denotes man’s place as part and parcel of nature * A surrender of the self in the face of God’s handiwork [an act of devotion]. The figure’s solitary state and absorption in the environment, with his back turned to us, reinforces the contemplative silence that surrounds him. He laid the groundwork for public acceptance of American landscape paintings as valuable and significant.

9. Characteristics of the Hudson River School
A new art for a new land.
Paint grand, scenic vistas.
Humans are an insignificant [even non-existent] part of the picture.
Experiment with affects of light on water and sky.
Symbol of the school  a broken tree stump
#1: “IN NATURE’S WONDERLAND”  Thomas Dougherty, 1835
He was one of the earliest American artists to use small figures dwarfted by the landscape  denotes man’s place as part and parcel of nature * A surrender of the self in the face of God’s handiwork [an act of devotion]. The figure’s solitary state and absorption in the environment, with his back turned to us, reinforces the contemplative silence that surrounds him. He laid the groundwork for public acceptance of American landscape paintings as valuable and significant.

10. In Nature’s Wonderland Thomas Doughty, 1835
#2 - #3  THOMAS COLE
The “Father” of the HRS.
Nobody had painted “America” before these artists.
The Hudson Valley from the Catskills through the Adirondacks.
America as Arcadia [Eden].

11. Niagara Frederic Church, 1857
#4: “THE OXBOW”  Thomas Cole, The dramatic clouds over the wilderness to the left speak of the uncontrolled power of nature. Tension between wilderness and garden [savagery and civilization]. OXBOW  in the shape of a ? * Where is this headed?  reflected the debate among Americans * Would the wilderness disappear completely for the sake of civilization, or would the two exist in perpetual tension with each other?

12. View of the Catskills, Early Autumn Thomas Cole, 1837
#4: “THE OXBOW”  Thomas Cole, 1836
The dramatic clouds over the wilderness to the left speak of the uncontrolled power of nature. Tension between wilderness and garden [savagery and civilization]. OXBOW  in the shape of a ? * Where is this headed?  reflected the debate among Americans * Would the wilderness disappear completely for the sake of civilization, or would the two exist in perpetual tension with each other?

13. View from Mt. Holyoke: The Oxbow Thomas Cole, 1836
#6 - #10: COLE’S “THE COURSE OF EMPIRE” SERIES
Allegorical paintings on the rise and fall of civilizations.
A warning to America about the dangers of democracy, which he thought could so easily degenerate into mob rule in the hands of a demagogue, who in deifying the will of the people without curbing its fickle passions, would become a dictator, an Amer. Caesar [ANDREW JACKSON].
Was meant to be a visual analogy to Edward Gibbon’s Decline & Fall of the Ro. Emp.
Same setting  a natural harbor topped by a round rock.
1. Savage State  the primordial scene  a culture without monuments or records.
2. Arcadian/Pastoral State  architecture, technol. [longship], the arts have begun, BUT, Eden can’t last [agrarian simplicity of the early Ro. Rep.]
3. Consummation  populism has led to mob rule, dictatorship [here comes Caesar across the bridge in triumph!]
4. Destruction  bellicose little beasts have grown up; the imperial city has fallen!  sacked and pillaged by hordes of unspecified vandals.
5. Desolation  the cycle of history returns to its beginning [WILDERNESS!], with ruins  a single column representing the vanity of man!
BUT, a stork [symbol of birth/rebirth]  faint hint of regeneration.

14. The Course of Empire: The Savage State Thomas Cole, 1834

15. The Course of Empire: The Arcadian or The Pastoral State - Thomas Cole, 1836

16. The Course of Empire: Consummation Thomas Cole, 1836

17. The Course of Empire: Destruction Thomas Cole, 1836

18. The Course of Empire: Desolation Thomas Cole, 1836
#11: “KINDRED SPIRITS”  ASHUR DURAND
He had a desire to create a harmony between man and nature.
# to contemplate or paint nature brought him closer to the divine and could inspire one to lead a moral life. A memorial to Cole, 5 yrs. His junior.
Cole, with his poet friend, William Cullen Bryant, discloses the meaning of nature to the writer.

19. Kindred Spirits – Asher Durand, 1849

20. Watercolors by John Audubon
#13: JOHN AUDUBON WATERCOLORS
“Ornithological” art as a branch of American illustration art.
His “Birds of America” series. He was not a scientist and had no formal training in natural history * but he was an excellent field naturalist. In order to illustrate the birds, he had to kill them in great numbers! * with no cameras then, in order to study birds up-close, you had to shoot them!
PARADOX OF EARLY 19c AMERICAS IN THE FACE OF NATURE: * he was a hunter in love with hunting, but with a respect, even love, for his prey.
Stanley Hawk
Barred Owl

21. 3. Utopian Communities

22. John Humphrey Noyes (1811-1886)
The Oneida Community New York, 1848
Millenarianism --> the 2nd coming of Christ had already occurred.
Humans were no longer obliged to follow the moral rules of the past.
all residents married to each other.
carefully regulated “free love.”
John Humphrey Noyes ( )

23. Demands of Community Life
Secular Utopian Communities
Individual Freedom
Demands of Community Life
spontaneity
self-fulfillment
discipline
organizational hierarchy

24. Brook Farm West Roxbury, MA
George Ripley ( )
Brook Farm West Roxbury, MA

25. “Village of Cooperation” – New Harmony
Robert Owen ( )
Utopian Socialist
“Village of Cooperation” – New Harmony

26. Original Plans for New Harmony, IN

27. New Harmony, IN

28. Mother Ann Lee (1736-1784) The Shakers
Early religious communal movement, 6,000 members
Men and women kept strictly separate, forbid marriage and sexual relations
Lack of new recruits saw its demise.
Remember the cries of those who are in need and trouble, that when you are in trouble, God may hear your cries.

29. Shaker Meeting

30. Shaker Simplicity & Utility

31. Religion and Class Divisions
Better educated, wealthier were little touched by the movement in the East.
Methodists, Baptists and other new sects prospered from less prosperous, less “learned” communities in the South and West

32. The Mormons (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints)
1823  Golden Tablets
1830  Book of Mormon
1844  Murdered in Carthage, IL
Joseph Smith ( )

33. Violence Against Mormons

34. The Mormon “Trek”

35. The Mormons (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints)
Deseret community
The Mormon “Moses”
Salt Lake City, Utah/Frontier Theocracy
Statehood delayed until 1896 due to polygamy stance
Brigham Young ( )

36. Penitentiary Reform Dorothea Dix
( )
1821  first penitentiary founded in Auburn, NY

37. Dorothea Dix Asylum

38. 7. “Separate Spheres” Concept
“Cult of Domesticity”
A woman’s “sphere” was in the home (it was a refuge from the cruel world outside).
Her role was to “civilize” her husband and family.
An 1830s MA minister:
The power of woman is her dependence. A woman who gives up that dependence on man to become a reformer yields the power God has given her for her protection, and her character becomes unnatural!

39. Early 19c Women Unable to vote. Legal status of a minor.
Single  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.

40. What It Would Be Like If Ladies Had Their Own Way!

41. Cult of Domesticity = Slavery
The 2nd Great Awakening inspired women to improve society.
Lucy Stone
Angelina Grimké
Sarah Grimké
American Women’s Suffrage Assoc.
edited Woman’s Journal
Southern Abolitionists

42. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Women’s Rights
1840  split in the abolitionist movement over women’s role in it.
London  World Anti-Slavery Convention
Lucretia Mott
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
1848  Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments

43. Seneca Falls Declaration