Warm-Up Quiz Day 13
1. Who invented the cotton gin?
2. What did the Cotton Gin do?
3. Who led the most successful slave revolt in American history?
Religion
Alexis de Tocqueville – Democracy in America Analyzed pros & cons of American democracy Noted the strength of religion in America –Due to separation of church & state –“Despotism may govern without faith, but Liberty cannot.”
Second Great Awakening Reaction against enlightenment & deism More emotional and evangelical faith Charles Finney –Emphasized personal role in salvation –Led tent revivals throughout the North –“All sin consists in selfishness, and all holiness or virtue, in disinterested benevolence”
Perfectionism Faith in human capacity achieve a better life through conscious acts of will
Millerites Believed that Christ would return by March 22, 1844 Thousands gave away their belongings in anticipation –Also climbed on roofs & hills to be closer to heaven –Movement gave rise to Seventh Day Adventists & Jehovah Witnesses
Mormon Trek Joseph Smith started Mormonism in NY (1830) Finds Golden Plates bur Church moved to IL –Attacked by locals for practicing polygamy Joseph Smith killed by a mob; Brigham Young took over Led Mormons on a trek to Utah
Utopian Communities Some wanted to create a perfect society where people shared goods, labor, or family life Brook Farm –Transcendentalists combined philosophy and plain living New Harmony –Model factory town Oneida –Universal marriage turns into successful flatware company
Shakers –Followers of Ann Lee (they think she is a female Christ) First settle near Albany, NY in 1776 –Governing principles Agrarian communal living Celibacy
-Live in gender segregated, dorm-like housing, but can work and pray together -God is male and female -Believe in finding the Inner Light -Expressions take the form of hymns and work songs, as well as rhythmic swaying and “dancing” when the spirit moved them –Community with no marriage, no sex, & social equality –Guess why they died out?
Transcendentalism Intellectual movement in New England –They wanted to transcend (or rise above) reason Leader was Ralph Waldo Emerson “Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind”
Henry David Thoreau Wrote Walden while living in a cabin. –Wanted to connect with nature Also wrote “Civil Disobedience” & refused to pay taxes –He opposed the Mexican War. –Influenced Gandhi & MLK
Other famous American authors Edgar Allan Poe –wrote dark gothic horror stories; wanted to make you tense Emily Dickenson –wrote poetry about life, death, loneliness, and God Herman Melville –wrote Moby Dick, about an obsessed captain and a white whale
Washington Irving –Wrote about upstate NY –Rip van Winkle & Sleepy Hollow James Fenimore Cooper –Struggle between wilderness & civilization on the frontier –Last of the Mohicans Nathaniel Hawthorne –Oppression of Puritanism –The Scarlet Letter
Hudson River School –Group of American artists who painted landscapes of the American wilderness.
2 nd G.A. said you are responsible for your own salvation Transc. said you should follow your conscience Put those two together and you get reformers