Section 1 Chapter 13
How did religion affect Americans during the Second Great Awakening? What were the transcendentalists’ views of American society? What were some ideas of the romantic movement?
Starting in the 1790’s the Christian renewal known as the Second Great Awaking began Charles Grandison Finney was an important leader of the second great awakening He was a lawyer that decided to leave his career and preach around the country He preached that sin was avoidable and told his converts to do good deeds He also held prayer meetings that would last for days
Minister Lyman Beecher of Boston was angered at Finney’s message and vowed that if he attempted to come to Boston he would “fight every inch of him” The challenges on faith drew more people to Christianity during this time (especially women and African-Americans)
Some New England writers and thinkers founded transcendentalism– the belief that people could transcend, or rise above, the material things in life, such as money Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, and Henry David Thoreau were all transcendentalists Emerson wrote “Self-Reliance” in 1841– Americans depended too much on institutions and traditions
Thoreau did not trust institutions and lived alone in a small cabin in Massachusetts (wrote about the experiences living near Walden Pond) In the 1840s some transcendentalists formed a community at Brook Farm, Massachusetts
It did not last long but it was an attempt at utopian communities-- tried to from a perfect society on earth There were several utopian societies that formed around the country but they failed because they could not get their community to work well enough together
Painters and writers were also shaped by spirituality, the simple life, and nature Romantic artists as they came to be called painted the American landscape Thomas Cole was one such artist
During the same time the number of notable American authors grew Ann Sophia Stephens wrote historical fiction Nathanial Hawthorne wrote one such book entitled The Scarlet Letter which depicted Puritan life (also wrote Moby-Dick)
Edgar Allan Poe became famous for his short stories (“The Raven”) Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman were two very famous American poet
Dickinson only published two poems anonymously during her life but after her death many poems were found in her home and published Whitman praised both American individualism and democracy in his simple poems
How did religion affect Americans during the Second Great Awakening? What were the transcendentalists’ views of American society? What were some ideas of the romantic movement?