Antebellum Reformers

Antebellum Revivalism & Reform

Overview

• Religious revivalism and social and economic changes lead to reform movements. • Most reformers eventually enter political arena. • Greater political organization and participation energizes reform movements. • As nation expands westward, part of the competition for reform is over the west.

The Second Great Awakening “Spiritual Reform From Within” [Religious Revivalism]

Social Reforms & Redefining the Ideal of Equality Temperance

Education

Abolitionism Asylum & Penal Reform

Women’s Rights

The Rise of Popular Religion In France, I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom pursuing courses diametrically opposed to each other; but in America, I found that they were intimately united, and that they reigned in common over the same country… Religion was the foremost of the political institutions of the United States. -- Alexis de Tocqueville, 1832

“The Pursuit of Perfection”

In Antebellum America

“The Benevolent Empire”: 1825 - 1846

The “Burned-Over” District in Upstate New York

Second Great Awakening Revival Meeting

Charles G. Finney (1792 – 1895)

“soul-shaking” conversion

The ranges of tents, the fires, reflecting light…; the candles and lamps illuminating the encampment; hundreds moving to and fro…;the preaching, praying, singing, and shouting,… like the sound of many waters, was enough to swallow up all the powers of contemplation.

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 (1805-1844)

Violence Against Mormons

The Mormon “Trek”

The Mormons

(The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints)

 Deseret community.

 Salt Lake City, Utah

Brigham Young (1801-1877)

Mother Ann Lee (1736-1784) The Shakers If you will take up your crosses against the works of generations, and follow Christ in the regeneration, God will cleanse you from all unrighteousness. Remember the cries of those who are in need and trouble, that when you are in trouble, God may hear your cries. If you improve in one talent, God will give you more.

Shaker Meeting

Shaker Hymn 'Tis the gift to be simple, 'Tis the gift to be free, 'Tis the gift to come down where you ought to be, And when we find ourselves in the place just right, 'Twill be in the valley of love and delight. When true simplicity is gained To bow and to bend we shan't be ashamed, To turn, turn will be our delight, 'Till by turning, turning we come round right.

Shaker Simplicity & Utility

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.

Transcendentalist Thinking  Man must acknowledge a body of moral truths that were intuitive and must TRANSCEND mere sensational proof. Moral truths: 1. The infinite benevolence of God. 2. The infinite benevolence of nature. 3. The divinity of man.

 They instinctively rejected all secular authority and the authority of organized churches and the Scriptures, of law, or of conventions

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!!

 Thus, the role of the reformer was to restore man to that divinity which God had endowed them.

Transcendentalist Intellectuals/Writers Concord, MA

Ralph Waldo Emerson Nature (1832)

Self-Reliance (1841) “The American Scholar” (1837)

Henry David Thoreau

Walden (1854)

Resistance to Civil Disobedience (1849)

Transcendentalism

• Romanticism/transcendentalism refers to a set of loosely connected attitudes toward nature and humankind. – NOT romantic “love”

• The movement known as romanticism sprang up in both Europe and America as a reaction to everything that had come before it: – The rationalism of the 18th Century Age of Reason. – The strict doctrines of Puritanism. – The early industrial revolution.

Transcendentalism

• Romantic artists, philosophers, and writers saw the limitations of reason and celebrated instead the glories of the individual spirit, the emotions, and the imagination as basic elements of human nature. • The splendors of nature inspired the romantics with more than the fear of God, and some of them felt a fascination with the supernatural. • Romantic works exhibited a preoccupation with atmosphere, sentiment, and optimism.

Transcendentalism Key Ideals • There is an essential unity of all creation. • There is a deep continuity between nature and humans. • Nature is an emblem of spiritual reality, through which one can gain access to transcendent truth. • Nature thus has deep religious/spiritual meaning, but ultimately it is that which transcends nature that has the deepest spiritual value.

Transcendentalism • Because of the continuity of nature and the spirit, to understand spiritual truths, one needs to develop sensitivity to and communion with nature. • Time spent in contemplation of nature and its beauty is an essential part of the religious/spiritual process.

Walden

Original Fireplace Site

View from the cabin to Walden Pond

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

Utopian Communities

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.

John Humphrey Noyes (1811-1886)

• carefully regulated “free love.”

Secular Utopian Communities Individual Freedom

CONFLICT

Demands of Community Life

spontaneity

discipline

self-fulfillment

organizational hierarchy

George Ripley (1802-1880)

Brook Farm West Roxbury, MA

Robert Owen (1771-1858)

Utopian Socialist “Village of Cooperation”

Original Plans for New Harmony, IN

New Harmony in 1832

New Harmony, IN

Penitentiary Reform Dorothea Dix (1802-1887)

1821  first penitentiary founded in Auburn, NY

Dorothea Dix Asylum - 1849

Temperance Movement 1826 - American Temperance Society “Demon Rum”!

Frances Willard

The Beecher Family

“The Drunkard’s Progress”

From the first glass to the grave, 1846

Temperance • American society for the Promotion of Temperance (1826) lobbied for individual abstinence and state prohibition laws. • Per capita alcohol consumption dropped sharply. • Some motivation for temperance- antiimmigrant bias. – Common stereotype was that immigrants drank more than other Americans.

Annual Consumption of Alcohol

Social Reform  Prostitution The “Fallen Woman” Sarah Ingraham (1802-1887)

1835  Advocate of Moral Reform Female Moral Reform Society focused on the “Johns” & pimps, not the girls.

Educational Reform Religious Training  Secular Education MA  always on the forefront of public educational reform * 1st state to establish tax support for local public schools. By 1860 every state offered free public education to whites. * US had one of the highest literacy rates.

Horace Mann (1796-1859) “Father of American Education” children were clay in the hands of teachers and school officials children should be “molded” into a state of perfection discouraged corporal punishment established state teachertraining programs

The McGuffey Eclectic Readers

Used religious parables to teach “American values.” Teach middle class morality and respect for order. Teach “3 Rs” + “Protestant ethic” (frugality, hard work, sobriety)

Women Educators Troy, NY Female Seminary curriculum: math, physics, history, geography. train female teachers

Emma Willard (1787-1870)

1837  she established Mt. Holyoke [So. Hadley, MA] as the first college for women.

Mary Lyons (1797-1849)

Women and Reform

• Women became active in reform- a new public path • Often differed in their perspectives from male reformers – For example: • While men typically blamed prostitutes, female reformers advocated punishing male patrons and helping prostitutes find decent jobs. • Temperance groups formed by male evangelicals (alcohol a sin) and female reformers (alcohol a threat to families) highlight these differences.

“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!

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.

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

Cult of Domesticity = Slavery The 2nd Great Awakening inspired women to improve society.

Angelina Grimké

Sarah Grimké

Southern Abolitionists R2-9

Lucy Stone American Women’s Suffrage Assoc. edited Woman’s Journal

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

Seneca Falls Declaration

The Abolitionist Movement

William Lloyd Garrison

Abolitionist Movement 1816  American Colonization Society created (gradual, voluntary emancipation.

British Colonization Society symbol

Forces Against Slavery

• Quakers- stressed brotherhood of all; their values inconsistent with slavery. • Age of Reason- as rationality replaces revelation, traditional justifications for slavery no longer so valid • Great Awakening- all could be saved • The Revolution- British actions likened to enslavement; Declaration; fear that British would use freed blacks. • Romanticism/Transcendentalismemphasis on individuality and ethics.

Forces Against Abolitionism • Southern economic dependence on the institution and economic interdependence of sections. • Social role of slavery in South • American political philosophy of independent states • White supremacy • Politicians- issues split parties, so avoided • Apathy- a remote issue to most Americans

Abolitionist Movement • Religion crucial to the movement throughout. • Begins with Quakers- but not a powerful movement because of religious prohibition on political activity. • 2nd Great Awakening contributed– Selfishness is what sin is; slavery is ultimate form of selfishness; therefore slavery is ultimate sin.

Abolitionist Movement • 1833- American Anti-Slavery Society. Provided assistance- financial and other- to those who sought political reform, and to some underground activities. Religion integral to their activities. By late 30’s most Northern states had a branch of this society or some other.

Abolitionist Movement

• 1830’s- The Liberator, William Lloyd Garrison

– Uncompromising – Moral persuasion by force of argument – Immediate emancipation

Premiere issue  January 1, 1831

William Lloyd Garrison

(1801-1879)

Slavery & Masonry undermined republican values. Immediate emancipation with NO compensation. Slavery was a moral, not an economic issue.

Other White Abolitionists

Lewis Tappan James Birney

Liberty Party. Ran for President in 1840 & 1844. Arthur Tappan

Black Abolitionists David Walker (1785-1830) 1829  Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World Fight for freedom rather than wait to be set free by whites.

Frederick Douglass (1817-1895)

1845  The Narrative of the Life Of Frederick Douglass 1847  “The North Star”

Sojourner Truth (1787-1883) or Isabella Baumfree

1850  The Narrative of Sojourner Truth

Harriet Tubman (1820-1913) Helped over 300 slaves to freedom. $40,000 bounty on her head. Served as a Union spy during the Civil War.

Leading Escaping Slaves Along the Underground Railroad

The Underground Railroad

Abolitionist Movement • 30’s-40’s- First “Mass Media Campaign” – Mass meetings and rallies; speakers fan out across the country; former slaves used as speakers and “exhibits”. – Mailings – Petitions to Congress – Children’s lit., songbooks, adult lit., pamphlets, newspapers – Organized a political party- The Liberty Party

Abolitionist Songs

Abolitionist Map

Anti-Slavery Alphabet

The Tree of Slavery—Loaded with the Sum of All Villainies!

• • • • • • • • •

Major issues for Abolitionists Equality? Women in the movement. Emancipation: immediate or gradual? Politics Violence Colonization- “polite anti-slavery” Slavery and slave trade in D.C. Internal slave trade in U.S. Expansion of slavery into the territories

* Abolitionists divided over some of these issues. Churches even fell apart.

The Southern reaction • At first, little reaction. Some abolitionism even politely accepted among Southerners • Gradually, politeness gave way to anger and violence- and South became its own worst enemy. – gag rule and violence in Congress – disruption of mails in South to stop Abolitionist literature – prices on the heads of Abolitionists – demands for more rigorous fugitive slave law enforcement – threats of secession

Reaction to the reaction • Many Northerners saw in the South's behavior a threat to (white) civil liberties in America. The First Amendment and other freedoms seemed in peril. This brought sympathy by more Notherners for the movement. The result of this fear was increasing antagonism between the North and South, and, as a result, even greater paranoia by Southern politicians. A downward spiral was underway.

The End • By the 1850’s the movement had done about all it could. The political party had sputtered (only 0.3% of the vote in 1840 presidential race). The movement attracted few new recruits. It had made all of its arguments. But it had put slavery front and center on the national agenda, and had attracted sympathy from previously unsympathetic quarters. Their battle for the American “soul” had been important and worthwhile.