1. Antebellum Reform Aim: What impact have Reform Movements had on American society?

2. Second Great Awakening From 1801 for years a blessed revival of religion spread through almost the entire inhabited parts of the West....The Presbyterians and Methodists in a great measure united in this work, met together, prayed together, and preached together.... - Peter Cartwright

3. Second Great Awakening

4. Goals: – Religious revival – Preached self-improvement and that all people could achieve perfection (Perfectionism). Leaders: – Charles Grandison Finney; Joseph Smith (Mormons); Brigham Young (Mormons); William Miller (Millerites) Impact: – Undermined traditional Calvinist doctrines; new religions; influenced social reform

5. Transcendentalism Goals: – Intellectual and spiritual movement – Taught people to transcend & overcome the limits of their minds and society, to search inward & undergo spiritual discovery – Encouraged self-reliance and relationship with nature Leaders: Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson Impact: First philosophical movement in America; influenced anti-slavery movement; led to Pragmatism.

6. Temperance Alcoholism is the sin of our land, and, with out boundless prosperity, is coming in upon us like a flood; and if anything shall defeat the hopes of the world, which hang upon our experiment of civil liberty, it is that river of fire, which is rolling through the land, destroying the vital air, and extending around an atmosphere of death. - Lyman Beecher, 1826

7. Temperance

8. Goals – Believed alcohol caused most of society’s problems— debt, abuse, etc. – Pushed for laws to prohibit manufacture and sale of liquor Leaders: Rev. Lyman Beecher; Neal Dow Impact: – formed American Temperance Society and Women’s Christian Temperance Union; Alcohol consumption sharply declined; Maine Law, 1851; 18 th Amend.

9. Public Education I believe in the existence of a great, immortal, immutable principle of natural law...which proves the absolute right to an education of every human being that comes into the world; and which, of course, proves the correlative duty of every government to see that the means of that education are provided for all.... Massachusetts is parental in her government. More and more, as year after year rolls by, she seeks to substitute prevention for remedy, and rewards for penalties. She strives to make industry the antidote to poverty, and to counterwork the progress of vice and crime by the diffusion of knowledge and the culture of virtuous principles. - Horace Mann, 1846

10. Public Education Goals – Public education for all citizens would result in an educated citizenry – Higher education for women Leaders: Horace Mann, Henry Barnard, Noah Webster, Emma Willard, Mary Lyon. Impact: – Free, tax-supported education in most Northern states – Standard textbooks (McGuffy Readers), longer school years, teacher training, etc. – Colleges for women

11. Prison and Asylum Reform I proceed, gentlemen, briefly to call your attention to the present state of insane persons confined within this Commonwealth, in cages, closets, cellars, stalls, pens! Chained, naked, beaten with rods, and lashed into obedience.... I have seen many who, part of the year, are chained or caged. The use of cages all but universal....I encountered during the last three months many poor creatures wandering reckless and unprotected through the country. - Dorothea Dix, 1843

12. Prison and Asylum Reform

13. Goals: – Mentally ill and criminals were crowded into prisons with horrific conditions – Wanted to rehabilitate prisoners (w/ rigid discipline, solitary confinement), not just punish them. Leader: Dorothea Dix Impact: Conditions in prisons improve (Auburn System); Mental institutions were created.

14. Utopian Communities Goals: Encouraged educated, hardworking people to share property and live in harmony. Practiced moral perfection and gender equality. Leaders: Robert Owen, John Humphrey Noyes Impact: Commune movement. Examples: New Harmony, Oneida.

15. Women’s Rights Goals: Suffrage; legal and economic rights (property, jobs); access to education; overcome “Cult of Domesticity” Leaders: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Catherine Beecher, Susan B. Anthony, Grimke sisters Impact: – After experiencing sexism within abolitionist movement, women organized Seneca Falls Convention (1848) – Drafted “Declaration of Sentiments” – Beginning of an organized women’s rights movement – Women began entering colleges and professions