1. Religion Sparks Reform
Section 8*1 pp

2. Preview Questions What was the Second Great Awakening?
What was transcendentalism?
What did Americans attempt to reform?

3. I. The Second Great Awakening
Evangelical movement
Dramatic religious conversions
Focus on individual salvation and social reform
Dramatic Religious

4. I. The Second Great Awakening
Revivalism
Roving preachers set up revival camps
Charles Finney: “Father of modern revivalism”
Increase in church membership

5. I. The Second Great Awakening
The Burned-Over-District
Epicenter of revivalism: Western New York
Many new denominations
Communal societies
Reforms like abolitionism and temperance

6. Burned-Over-District

7. I. The Second Great Awakening
The African American Church
“Democratic Churches” expand religion
Social, political, cultural centers
Richard Allen- founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church

8. Transcendentalism Ralph Waldo Emerson+
A philosophical and literary movement that emphasized living a simple life and celebrated the truth found in nature and in personal emotion and imagination
Led by Emerson and Thoreau
Truth found in nature, emotion, and imagination
Dignity of the individual
Promoted self-reliance, optimism, freedom

9. Ralph Waldo Emerson

10. II. Transcendentalism Thoreau Unitarianism Civil Disobedience
Instead of protesting with violence, they should peacefully refuse to obey the law
Walden's Pond-follow your inner voice
Unitarianism
Faith in the individual
Reason and conscience as path to perfection

11. III. Ideal Communities Utopian Communities
Goal: create a perfect place
Inspired by idealism to improve mankind
Not long-lasting

12. III. Ideal Communities Shaker Communities Founded by Anne Lee
Value sharing, gender equality, peace
No marriage or children

13. IV. School & Prison Reform
Asylums and Prisons
Dorothea Dix
Reformers emphasize
rehabilitation and hope
Education
Set up publicly supported schools
Education is essential to democracy
If we do not prepare children to become good citizens ….if we do not enrich their minds with knowledge, then our republic most go down to destruction, as others have gone before it.” (Horace Mann)