1. Era of Reform: How does overcoming obstacles lead to change?
Rebels with a Cause!
Era of Reform: How does overcoming obstacles lead to change?

2. Spirit of Reform
A revival of religious feeling swept across the nation from the 1800s and 1840s. Church leaders called this the Second Great Awakening a religious revival that appealed to people’s emotions.
This was the idea that everyone could gain forgiveness for their sins, or be saved by doing good works.
Men and women alike were now given a reason to work for the improvement of society.
Optimistic ideas inspired Americans during this time!!!

3. Transcendentalism
The idea that people could transcend, or rise above, the material things in life. A philosophy which taught that people should “transcend” go beyond logical thinking you reach true understanding with the help of emotion and intuition.

4. Ralph Waldo Emerson
Inspired Thoreau, Dickinson, Hawthorne & Walt Whitman—Central figure in the transcendentalist movement
BELIEVED EVERY HUMAN HAD UNLIMITED POTENTIAL—COULD TRANSCEND IF THEY TRUSTED THEIR EMOTIONS AND INTUITION
Entered Harvard University at 14—Great Minister—married only 2 years—tuberculosis. Sent him searching for vital truth
Wrote civil War hymns, poems, 5,000 letters remain

5. Henry David Thoreau “…government in best which governs not at all”
I dea of individualism question society, institutions, and rules
DO NOT CONFORM TO OTHERS EXPECTATIONS
Rebel: spent 2 years in solitude and wrote a 6,000 page journal.
Once jailed for refusing to pay taxes which supported the Mexican-American War

6. Utopian Community: Model communities created by transcendentalists
People in these communities A group of were working to establish a perfect society on Earth

7. Utopian Communities The Shakers Brook Farm
Community Started by Ann Lee
6,000 members
Banned private ownership of property
Built beautiful furniture
No copulation because it was seen as competitive in nature.
Started by George Ripley near Boston
People were encouraged to live “brotherly cooperation” instead of competing with one another
Shared labor of supporting themselves by farming, teaching, and making clothes

9. Romantics:
An idea that each individual brings unique perspective to the world that is best expressed by emotion rather than reason.
Thomas Cole: Created romantic, soft paintings
Nathaniel Hawthorne: Wrote the Scarlett Letter
Emily Dickinson: “If I can stop one heart from breaking…”
Poems were never published until after her death, cared for her ailing father

10. Romantics Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Paul Revere’s ride
Edgar Allen Poe: The Raven “Once upon a midnight dreary, where I pondered, weak and weary”

12. Prison Reform
1841-A woman named Dorothea Dix agreed to teach Sunday school at jail
She was horrified to see many prisoners were bound in chains and locked in ages children accused of minor thefts were jailed with adult criminals
Were conditions this bad everywhere????
Dix found that this was the case throughout Mass.
Mentally Ill: locked in dirty cages, whipped, etc. Dix believed they needed care and treatment NOT punishment
Campaigned for prison reform until she died by 1887 state govt’s no longer put debtors in prison, outlawed cruel punishments
She showed that reformers could lead society to make significant changes

13. What would life be like if there weren’t public schools?
What advantages do you have being able to attend public school?

14. History of Education in America
Beginnings: town school paid for by the communities
Stress on the Bible
Middle/Southern Colonies: Parents, private tutors
12 colonies: few went beyond elementary school
trade/apprentice work was popular
Printing, blacksmith, farming

15. Ivy League Colleges 1636-Harvard was the 1st
Cornell, Dartmouth, Princeton, University of Penn, Yale, Brown, Columbia
Main focus was religions
NO GIRLS ALLOWED!!

16. Immigration
Cause: Immigration increased Effect: Better Education could make more productive workers & responsible citizens A. Teachers: Usually young men B. Textbooks: McGuffy’s reader, compiled by William Holmes McGuffy—an educator and Presbyterian minister—taught morals and social values

17. Horace Mann 1st Secretary of Education in 1837 in Massachusetts
Doubled school budget in Mass spoke out on the need for public schools
Increased teacher’s salaries
Extended the school year
Established the 1st school for teacher training
Why were these things important to him?

18. Women in Education
Emma Willard: Women’s Troy Female Seminary—1st college level institution for women
Oberlin: 1837—1st co-ed college in America

19. African American Schools
Irregular Education
Allowed not just girls, but all African American Students
HBCU-Historically Black College and University
a. Howard, Tuskegee, Clark, Morehouse

20. The Movement to end Slavery
How can a land of the free still allow slavery?
By the 1830s many people were asking this question Abolitionist: a person who supports the ending of slavery
Struggle begins:
Some opposition since the Revolutionary war, Quakers stopped owing in 1776, 1796 every state as south as VA had anti-slavery societies. Congress passed a law ending slave trade in 1808 still accepted in the North

21. How to End?
Abolitionists wanted to end slavery, but disagreed how to end it!!!
Revolt
Peaceful
Give slaveholders time to develop farming methods
Blacks & Whites were a part of the movement
William Lloyd Garrison (white man)-started an abolitionist newspaper called The Liberator
Demanded the immediate freeing of all slaves
Angry proslavery groups destroyed his press and burned his house

22. Frederick Douglass An escaped slave
Became the leader in the abolition movement
His autobiography was published in 1845 and was an instant best seller
Brilliant-started his own newspaper – North Star
Through his writings and speeches, he waged a fierce campaign against slavery

23. Women get Involved
Many women were inspired by religious movements to become involved in abolition
Faced Violence
Grimke sisters: raised in the south by a slaveholding family
Went north and became Quakers
Spoke about the poverty and pain of slavery
Spoke to large crowds of men and women and paved the way for other women to speak in public
Sojourner Truth: Former slave
Strongly spiritual
An outstanding speaker who was inspired by Douglass and Garrison
Felt God would end slavery peacefully
Minority, but efforts and violence helped change Northerners attitudes about slavery paved the way for Women’s rights

24. Equal Rights for Women
Why were women abolitionists is a strange position?
Movement begins: Friendship b/w Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton
1840-Anti-Slavery Convention in London
Women weren’t allowed to speak sat in the back behind a curtain
Came from 2 different backgrounds:
Mott: 47 y/o mother of 4, active reformer
Stanton: 25, newly married, never spoken in public, saw there were no laws protecting women from their husbands, attended 1st all women’s high school
The women agreed something needed to be done about the injustices suffered by women

25. Unequal Treatment Could not speak in public
Suffer taxation w/o representation
Rejected by medical schools and not given job opportunities
To overcome obstacles women had to work together Seneca Falls Convention
8 years after Mott and Stanton met
July 19, people including 40 men arrived at the convention (abolitionists, Quakers, other reformers, local housewives farmers, and factory workers)
Modeled a proposal for women’s rights

26. Declaration of Sentiments
Modeled after the D. O. I “we hold these truths to be self evident that all men and women are created equal”
Listed acts of tyranny of men over women
Stanton’s presentation of the Declaration was her 1st speech
Debate over voting rights convention corrected injustices and Stanton proposed that women DEMAND THE RIGHT TO VOTE!
Received support form Frederick Douglass
Convention voted to approve the resolution

27. Legacy of Convention Created an organized campaign for women’s rights
Sojourner Truth became a prominent figure in the movement
Susan B Anthony became an advocate and gave memorable speeches (written by Stanton)
NY gave women the right to control property and wages, MA passed liberal divorce laws
One woman from the convention lived to vote for a president legally: Charlotte Woodward
19th Amendment in 1920