The Age of Reform 1820 - 1860. 10/21/2015copyright 2006 ; All Rights Reserved. 2 Define the...

The Age of Reform

1820 - 1860

04/21/23 copyright 2006 www.brainybetty.com; All Rights Reserved. 2

Define the following terms.

1. Utopias – 1

2. Revival – 1

3. Temperance – 2

4. Transcendentalists – 3

5. Suffrage – 4

6. Abolitionists – 5


The Age of Reform

• The idea of reform – the drive to improve society and the lives of Americans – grew during the mid-1800s.

• Reformers set out to improve the lives of the disadvantaged, especially enslaved people and the urban poor.


The Reforming Spirit

• Utopias, or peaceful, harmonious communities, were established by social reformers.

• Cooperation rather than competition were emphasized.



• Communities were built by religious groups, including the Mormons.

• Except for the Mormon communities, most utopian communities did not last more than a few years.



• Religious reformers inspired the Second Great Awakening with a series of religious frontier camp meetings called revivals.

• People came together to listen to preachers, pray and renew their commitment to change their lives & the world.



• The Second Great Awakening increased church membership and inspired people to become involved in missionary work and social reform movements.



• In 1826 the American Society for the Promotion of Temperance was established.

• Religious reformers blamed alcohol for poverty, crime, the breakup of families and insanity.



• They called for temperance, or little or no alcohol consumption.

• Many states passed laws that made the manufacture and sale of alcohol illegal.

• But within a few years, these laws were repealed or cancelled.


Reforming Education

• In the early 1800s, education was limited.

• Only Massachusetts offered free elementary education.

• Most parents had to pay for their children’s education or send them to schools for the poor.

• Many children received no education at all.


Reforming Education

• Horace Mann, a lawyer, became the leader of the educational reform movement.

• His accomplishments included lengthening the school year to 6 months, developing teacher training programs, increasing teachers’ salaries, and improving the curriculum.


Reforming Education

• By the 1850s all states agreed upon three basic principles of public education.– Schools should be

free and funded by taxes.

– Teachers should be trained.

– Children should be required to attend school.


Reforming Education

• However, many states did not practice these principles.

• Some people did not believe women needed an education.

• Schools did not exist in every area, particularly in the West.

• African Americans had few opportunities to go to school.


Reforming Education

• Dozens of.new colleges and universities were created during this time period.

• Most admitted only men.• Religious groups

founded many colleges, including Amherst and Holy Cross in Massachusetts and Trinity and Wesleyan in Connecticut.


Reforming Education• Slowly, higher education

became available to more groups of people.– Not only women and

African Americans accepted into higher education, but the deaf and blind were also.

• Reformers also focused on the plight of the mentally ill and prisoners.


Cultural Trends

• The changes in American society influenced art and literature.

• Beginning in the 1820s American artists developed their own style and explored American themes.


Cultural Trends• The American spirit of

reform influenced transcendentalists.

• Transcendentalists stressed the relationship between humans and nature as well as the importance of the individual conscience.

• Margaret Fuller, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickenson, and Henry David Thoreau were transcendentalist authors.


Cultural Trends• Harriet Beecher Stowe

wrote the most successful best-seller of the mid-1800s, Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

• It explored the injustice of slavery.


The Women’s Movement

• In the mid-1800s, many women began working for women’s rights.

• Many women reformers were Quakers - Quaker women already enjoyed a certain amount of equality in their own communities.



• In July 1848, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, and a few other women organized the first women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York.



• They issued a Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions which called for an end to all laws that discriminated against women.

• It demanded that women be allowed to enter the all-male world of trades, professions, and businesses.



• The most controversial issue at the Seneca Falls Convention concerned suffrage, or the right to vote.

• Elizabeth Stanton insisted that the declaration include a demand for woman suffrage, but other delegates thought the idea of women voting was too radical.



• The Seneca Falls Convention paved the way for the women’s rights movement.

• Beginning with Wyoming, several states granted women the right to vote.


The Women’s Movement• In the 1800s, women had

few career choices.• However, Elizabeth

Blackwell wanted to study medicine & was turned down by more than 20 schools before being accepted by Geneva College in New York.

• She graduated at the head of her class and went on to become the first woman to receive a medical degree in the United States.



• Mary Ann Shadd Curry was the first African American woman in the nation to earn a law degree.



• Susette La Flesche was a member of the Omaha tribe and campaigned for Native American rights.



• Several states began to recognize the right of women to own property after marriage.

• Some states passed laws permitting women to share the guardianship of their children with their husbands.

• Indiana was the 1st of several states that allowed women to divorce husbands who abused alcohol.



• Despite the accomplishments of a few notable women, gains in education, and changes in state laws, women in the 1800s remained limited by social customs and expectations.


The Abolitionists


The Abolitionists• At the Constitutional

Convention in 1787, the delegates had agreed to let each state decide whether to allow slavery.

• By the early 1800s, Northern states had ended slavery, but it continued in the South.

• The religious revival and the reform movement of the mid-1800s gave new life to the antislavery movement.


The Abolitionists• The first anti-slavery effort

was not aimed at abolishing slavery but at resettling African Americans in Africa or the Caribbean.

• The American Colonization Society, formed in 1816 by a group of white Virginians, worked to free enslaved workers gradually by buying them from slaveholders and sending them abroad to start new lives.


The Abolitionists• The American Colonization

Society did not halt the growth of slavery.

• The number of enslaved people continued to grow at a steady pace, and they could only resettle a small number of African Americans.

• Many African Americans did not want to leave their families and homes for an unknown, faraway land.


The Abolitionists• Abolitionist William Lloyd

Garrison stimulated the growth of the antislavery movement & called for the “immediate and complete emancipation” of enslaved people.

• He founded his own newspaper, The Liberator, in Boston in 1831.

• He also started the American Antislavery Society which grew to over 1,000 chapters.


The Abolitionists• Sarah and Angelina

Grimke, daughters of a wealthy slave-holding family, were among the first women to speak against slavery.

• The Grimkes persuaded their mother to give them their share of their inheritance, which they used to immediately free some of the enslaved workers.


The Abolitionists• Many free African

Americans in the North took an active role in anti-slavery movements.

• Although their lives in the North were still difficult, they were intensely proud of their freedom and wanted to help those who were still enslaved.


The Abolitionists• They took an active part in

organizing and directing the American Antislavery Society.

• They subscribed in large numbers to The Liberator.

• In 1827 Samuel Cornish & John Russwurm started the first African American newspaper, Freedom’s Journal.

• In 1830 free African American leaders held their first convention in Philadelphia.


The Abolitionists• Frederick Douglass, the most

widely known abolitionist, was born enslaved in Maryland.

• After teaching himself to read and write, he escaped from slavery and settled in New York.

• He joined the Massachusetts Antislavery Society and traveled widely to address abolitionist meetings.

• He also edited an antislavery newspaper called the North Star.


The Abolitionists

• Sojourner Truth was born a slave in New York and lived in a cellar.

• She escaped in 1826 and gained official freedom in 1827 when New York banned slavery.

• She tirelessly worked in the movements for abolitionism and for women’s rights.


The Abolitionists• Henry “Box” Brown

escaped slavery by having himself sealed into a small box and shipped from Richmond to Philadelphia.

• After a 26-hour ordeal, much of it spent upside down, the top of the crate was pried off and Brown emerged, a free man.

• When news of his escape spread, he wrote an autobiography & spoke to many anti-slavery groups.


The Abolitionists• The Underground Railroad

was established as a network of escape routes from the South to the North that were in place to secretly help African Americans to escape from slavery.

• Slaves traveled at night, often on foot or in wagons with hidden compartments and hid & rested in barns, attics, church basements, or other “stations” during the day.


The Abolitionists• Harriet Tubman, an

escaped African American, became the most famous conductor on the Underground Railroad.

• Most slaves who were able to escape came from the Upper South.

• Although only a small percentage of slaves were actually helped, the Underground Railroad offered hope.


The Abolitionists• Many Southerners were

against the abolitionist movement because…– They depended on slavery

for the success of their plantations and farms.

– Some believed they could take care of African Americans better than they could take care of themselves.

– They argued that slavery was better than working in Northern factories.


The Abolitionists• Some Northerners

opposed the movement because…– They considered free

African Americans a threat to their social order.

– Some believed that freed slaves would take jobs away from white people.

– Some were afraid of a war between the North and South.


The Abolitionists• Conflict continued

between those in favor of and opposed to slavery.

• Abolitionists were attacked, buildings were burned, and some were killed.

• But, they continued to fight for the end of slavery and joined the growing women’s rights movement as well.

The Age of Reform 1820 - 1860. 10/21/2015copyright 2006 ; All Rights Reserved. 2 Define the...

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