1. The Ferment of Reform & Culture
Chapter 15
The Ferment of Reform & Culture

2. Second Great Awakening
Wave of spiritual fervor
“camp meetings”- thousands gathered to listen to a preacher
Boosted church membership
Stimulated humanitarian reforms
Missionary work

3. Second Great Awakening
Peter Cartwright
Traveling preacher
Called upon sinners to repent
Charles Grandison Finney

4. Second Great Awakening
Feminization of religion
Middle class women- religious enthusiasts
Majority of new church members
Female spiritual worth

5. Denominational Diversity
Second Great Awakening widened the lines b/w religions
Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Unitarians: wealthier classes of society (untouched by SGA, east)
Methodists, Baptists: spawned by religious fervor, came from less prosperous classes in S & W

6. Desert “Zion” in Utah Book of Mormon Church of Latter Day Saints
New religion- Joseph Smith
Opposition (polygamy)
Brigham Young leads Mormons to Utah

7. Transcendentalism Golden age in American literature
Rejected John Locke’s theory that knowledge comes to the mind from the senses
Truth “transcends” the senses: it cannot be found through observation alone
Self-reliance & self-discipline

8. Transcendentalism Ralph Waldo Emerson Henry David Thoreau
Poet & philosopher
Stressed self-reliance & self-confidence
Outspoken critic of slavery
Henry David Thoreau
Poet, mystic, non-conformist
Truth through study & meditation

9. Education Reform Tax-supported public education came about.
educate their children because the children were the future.
Not very many schools in the U.S. because of their high costs to communities.
Horace Mann- campaigned effectively for a better schooling system.

10. Higher Goals for Higher Learning
Noah Webster- “Schoolmaster of the Republic”
Dictionary published in 1828
SGA led to small, denominational, liberal arts colleges in the South & West
Tradition-bound curriculum
First state-supported universities
Higher education for women rose

11. An Age of Reform states gradually abolished debtors' prisons
Idea that prisons should reform as well as punish arose
Dorothy Dix- released a report on insanity and asylums; improved conditions for the mentally ill.

12. Temperance
The problem of drinking was found in women, clergymen, and members of Congress.
American Temperance Society
Problem of drinking tore down the family structure.
Neal S. Dow- "Father of Prohibition"; supported banning the manufacture and sale of liquor

13. Women in Revolt
role of women was to stay at home and be subordinate to her husband.
Women could not vote and when married, she could not retain her property. Women actually started to avoid marriage.
Feminists met at Seneca Falls, New York in a Woman's Rights Convention in 1848; wrote The Declaration of Sentiments (Elizabeth Cady Stanton)

14. Scientific Achievement
Americans were more interested in practical gadgets than in pure science. by modern standards.
In the early 1840s, several American doctors and dentists successfully used laughing gas and ether as anesthetics.

15. New Literature The Blossoming of a National Literature
Most of the reading material in America was imported or taken from British sources.
Washington Irving- the first American to win international recognition as a literary figure.
James Fenimore Cooper- the first American novelist to gain world fame.

16. New Literature
Edgar Allan Poe- wrote with a pessimistic tone, not like the literature at the time.
Herman Melville- writer of the novel Moby Dick.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow- one of the most famous poets to come from America wrote for the refined class; was adopted by the less-cultured class.