Religion Spark Reform Chapter 8-1

 US religious movement after 1790  Rejected 18 th century belief that God predetermined if a person would go to heaven or hell  Individual responsibility: people could improve themselves and society  Promoted individualism and responsibility – power of the common citizen Second Great Awakening

 Revival: emotional meeting to promote religious faith  Excited preaching and prayer  Charles Grandison Finney: “father of modern revivalism”  1800: 1 in 15 Americans belonged to a church  1850: 1 in 6 Americans belonged to a church Revivalism

 SGA brought Christianity to enslaved African-Americans  Belief that all people belonged to the same God  Gave members spiritual support to oppose slavery  1 st black national convention: September 1830 in Philadelphia led by Richard Allen– later became an annual convention African-American Church

 Rural South: Slaves worshipped in same churches, heard same sermons, and sang same hymns as their owners – but in segregated pews  Christian message = promise of freedom  East: free African Americans had their own churches – became political, cultural, and social center

 Philosophical and literary movement  emphasized living a simple life  highlighted the truth found in nature and in personal emotion and imagination  Transcendentalists: stressed American ideas of optimism, self-reliance, and freedom Transcendentalism

 Ralph Waldo Emerson: nurtured newly emerging pride in American culture  Henry David Thoreau: put idea of self-reliance into practice by living alone in woods for 2 years and abandoning community life  individual conscience important – urged people not to obey laws they considered to be unjust  Civil disobedience: peaceful protest as opposed to protesting unjust laws with violence  Ex: Thoreau didn’t pay his taxes because he didn’t want to support the US gov’t. (which allowed slavery and fought a war with Mexico) – went to jail

 Emphasized reason and appeals to conscience as the paths to perfection, rather than appealing to the emotions  New England: wealthy and educated followers  Believed conversion was a gradual process (revivals had dramatic conversions)  Believed individual and social reform were possible and important (agreed with revivalists) Unitarianism

 Groups tried to create a “utopia” (perfect place) inspired by the optimism of religious and social reform  Common goal: self-sufficiency  Best-known: New Harmony, Indiana and Brook Farm near Boston  Most lasted no more than a few years Utopian Communities

 Shakers shared their goods with each other, believed that men and women are equal, and refused to fight for any reason  Shakers vowed not to marry or have children – depended on converts and adopting children to expand their communities  1840s: 6,000 members (highest number)  1999: 7 members in the entire US Shaker Communities

 Dorothea Dix: discovered that jails housed mentally ill people  “I proceed, gentlemen, briefly to call your attention to the present state of insane persons confined within this Commonwealth…Chained, naked, beaten with rods, and lashed into obedience!...Injustice is also done to the convicts: it is certainly very wrong that they should be doomed day after day and night after night to listen to the ravings of madmen and mad women.” – 1843 letter to MA Legislature Prison & Asylum Reform

 1843: Dix sent a report to MA Legislature = law to improve conditions was passed  : Dix persuaded 9 Southern states to create hospitals for the mentally ill  Prison reformers emphasized rehabilitation  could reform the sick or imprisoned person into a useful societal member = hope for everyone (revivalists)

 Before mid-1800s: no uniform education policy in US  School conditions varied from region to region  Before Civil War: MA and VT were only states to pass a compulsory school attendance law  Classrooms weren’t divided by grade  Most students stopped attending school by age 10 Education Reform

 1830s: Americans demanded tax-supported public schools  Opposition:  wealthy tax payers who enrolled their children in private schools  German immigrants who were afraid their children would lose their German language and culture  By 1850s: every state had provided some form of publically funded elementary schools

 Horace Mann: first secretary of MA Board of Education in 1837  Established teacher-training programs, instituted curriculum reforms, and doubled money that MA spent on schools  1848: introduced age-grading:  grouped students based on their ages rather than one large classroom where ages could range from 6- 14