CREATING AMERICAN CREATING AMERICAN CULTURECULTURECulturalNationalism

– Literature / Art– Values / Virtues

Religious ReformsWomen’s ReformsSlavery & AbolitionEconomics &

Immigration

American Virtues / Values(Republican Virtues)

• Self-Reliance• Hard Work / Sacrifice• Frugality

(don’t waste…save)• Moral Values

– Honor– Integrity– Humility

Romance Era Writers (American Literature - themes) *nature of man, *struggles of evil, morality

• Washington Irving– Rip Van Winkle / The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

• Nathaniel Hawthorne– The Scarlet Letter

• Herman Melville– Moby Dick

• Edgar Allen Poe– “father of modern short story”

Patriotic Art

Greek & Roman CLASSICAL ARCHITECTURE

The GREAT AMERICAN WILDERNESS

A myth of the West as a land of romance , opportunity and adventure emerged.

Manifest Destiny ".... the right of our manifest destiny to

over spread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and … self-government entrusted to us. It is right such as that … for the full expansion of its principle and destiny of growth."

Religious – Spiritual Movements Lead to Social Movements(Transcendentalism

)Ralph Waldo

Emerson

Henry David Thoreau

(2nd Great Awakening)

Charles Finney

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 Rise of Popular ReligionThe Rise of Popular Religion

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• Second Great Awakening (Religion) Kentucky & Tennessee

• Evangelical – Protestant – Revivalists Movement (Religious Change from Within)

• (Activist Expression of Faith / Conversion) – New Churches and Denominations( Baptist, Church of Christ, etc..)

• New Congregational Churches (Congregation LEADS the Church)

• Express “New Birth in Christ” with your actions and Good Deeds – Transform your life & Society– HUGE Impact on Society

(explosion of Social Change)

• African Americans Christians– Southern Worship / Teaching Bible

• Huge impact on Slaves in South / Anti-Slavery Sentiments

– A.M.E. Church (North)

Revivals Spread

The Second Great Awakening The Second Great Awakening

“Spiritual Reform From Within”

[Religious Revivalism]Social Reforms & Moral Ideals of

Liberty & Equality

Temperance

Asylum &Penal

Reform

Education

Women’s Rights

Abolitionism

Spiritual Religious(NO moral authority) (Moral Authority)Transcendentalists (spiritualism)

worship of Nature – the Individual

“Transcend” the limits of intellect and allow the emotions, the SOUL, to create an original relationship with the Universe”. (Belief in:)

– Self-Directed Faith– Self-Created GOD

• They rejected all Secular Authority, the Law, the authority of Organized churches, the Scriptures, Conventional Values or Ideas of Morality

• TranscendentalistsTranscendentalists (spiritualism)– Ralph Waldo Emerson –

personal emotions (your feelings guide you)

– Henry David Thoreau (French Enlightener) simplicity, anti-materialism, anti-society

•Unitarian Movement (spiritualism)

– Logic & Reason over emotions to perfection

• Utopian Societies (perfect society) – Anti Industrial Society Movement

• Utopian SocietiesUtopian Societies (perfect society) – Create their own society (opposite of

current) – Combine Individual Freedom with

Common Ownership (Socialism) *doesn’t work

• Richard Owen – New Harmony, IN

Penitentiary ReformPenitentiary Reform

Dorothea Dix(1802-1887)

1821 first penitentiary foundedin Auburn, NY

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Dorothea Dix Asylum - 1849Dorothea Dix Asylum - 1849

Religious Training Secular Education *early IVY League * other training

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.* US had the highest literacy rates in the world.

•Education Reform Expands – Northwest Ordinance of 1787 required

SCHOOLS to be built within the town– Mass. & Vermont compulsory Education Laws

• Universal Public Education 1850’s•Public Tax Supported School

– Teaching Values – Citizenship•REPUBLICAN VALUES

– McGuffy Readers Textbook

– Horace Mann / school reformer• Father of American Education

Used religious parables to teach “American values.” Teach middle class morality and respect for order. Teach “3 R’s” (Reading, wRiting & aRithmatic)

+ “Protestant ethic” (Republican Virtues)

(frugality, hard work, humility, sobriety)

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Women EducatorsWomen EducatorsTroy, NY - Female Seminary* curriculum: math, physics, history, geography.* train female teachers

Emma Willard(1787-1870)

Mary Lyons(1797-1849)

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

The 2nd Great Awakening inspired women to improve society.

Angelina Grimké Sarah Grimké

Southern Abolitionists

Lucy Stone

American Women’sSuffrage Assoc.

Edited Woman’s Journal

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Women’s Rights Movement

• Laws Limit Women’s Rights (customs – Cult of Domesticity)

• Religious Inspiration / Social Concerns Abolition Movement / Women’s Rights

• Sarah & Angelina Grimke– 1836 Appeal to Christian Women of

South

– Southern ABOLITIONISTS

1840 split in the abolitionist movement over women’s role in it.

London World Anti-Slavery Convention

(NO Women allowed)

Lucretia Mott Elizabeth Cady Stanton

1848 Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments

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Women’s Rights Movement • Religious Inspiration / Social Concerns

Abolition Movement / Women’s Rights•Laws Limit Women’s Rights

(customs – Cult of Domesticity)•Sarah & Angelina Grimke

– 1836 Appeal to Christian Women of South

•1840 World Anti-Slavery Convention – women excluded

•Seneca Falls Convention

• Seneca Falls Convention(1st) Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton – Women’s Suffrage - (right to vote)

• Education -by 1890 2,500 graduate from colleges Elizabeth Blackwell (1st Medical Dr.) -1857 starts 1st U.S. school of Nursing

• Dorethea Dix (Improve prisons /Mental Hospitals)

Temperance MovementTemperance Movement

Frances WillardFrances WillardThe Beecher FamilyThe Beecher Family

1826 - American Temperance Society

“Demon Rum”!

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“The Drunkard’s Progress”

“The Drunkard’s Progress”

From the first glass to the grave, 1846

• Temperance Movement – Abstinence (NOT drink alcohol) – Fix social problems by attacking the

root of the problems

• Alcohol consumption as it relates to major SOCIAL PROBLEMS:– Abuse– Lack of Parenting– Crime– Poverty– Etc….

• Will lead to PROHIBITION in the 1900’s– NO making, selling, distribution of

Alcohol