1. The Pursuit of Perfection 1801 - 1850
Chapter 12
The Pursuit of Perfection

2. The time period from the Jacksonian
Antebellum period
The time period from the Jacksonian
Era to the Civil War
On the Rights: The Hermitage of Andrew Jackson in Nashville, Tenn.
On the Left: Home of Abraham Lincoln in Springfield, Ill.

3. Diverse Mix of Reformers
Dedicate themselves to a number of causes.
The focus seemed to center in six different movements: Education, Temperance, Women’s Rights, Utopian societies, Abolition, prisons and the mentally ill.

4. The Second Great Awakening
Emotions of the Heart vs. Emotions of the Head
A revival movement organized as a reaction
against the rationalism (believe in human
nature) of the Enlightenment and the
American revolution
These revivals were known for their camp meetings. On the frontier they were usually organized by Baptist and / or Methodist circuit riders Those denominations grew greatly. They were much like summer camps and revival meetings of today. They converted many of the unchurched.

5. Revival in the South and Frontier
Relied mostly on circuit riders
Baptist
Methodist
Number of denominations grew
Circuit riders would travel from one location to another and attract thousands to hear their dramatic preaching at outdoor revival or camp meetings. They converted many of the unchurched into respectable members of the community,. By 1850, the Baptists and the Methodists had become the largest Protestant denominations in the country.

6. Church of Latter Day Saints
New Religions
Seventh Day Adventist
Church of Latter Day Saints

7. New York and New England
Charles G. Finney
“Hell and Brimstone”
Lyman Beecher
Benevolent Societies
In the Northern states from Massachusetts westward to Ohio , the Great Awakening played a significant role in social reform. Activist religious groups provided both the leadership and the well-organized voluntary societies that drove the reform movements of the antebellum era.

8. Spreading Christianity and societal reforms.
Daddy Lyman with the Beecher children. Harriet Beecher is seated on the right hand end.
This family was one of the major contributors to the reform movement of the antebellum period.
Spreading Christianity and societal reforms.

9. Moral Reforms: Stamp out Vice
Gambling
Prostitution
Dueling

10. Temperance Movement Consumption of alcohol was a problem
This was a good example of the shift from moral exhortation to political action. By the 1840s had more than a million members. German and Irish immigrants were opposed. Given the high rate of alcohol consumption (five gallons of hard liquor per person in 1820) it is understandable why the temperance movement proved to be the most popular of the prewar reforms.

11. Cult of Domesticity Cult of True Woman Hood
Man’s Sphere
Breadwinner
Decision Maker
Defender / Protector
Woman’s Sphere
Children
Household
Education
Nurturing

12. Public Education Free Common Schools Moral Education Horace Mann
As the Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education, Mann worked for improving schools, compulsory attendance for all children, a longer school year, and increased teacher preparation.

13. Asylums for the Mentally Ill
Mental Hospitals
Schools for blind and deaf
Dorothea Dix
Humanitarian reformers of the 1820s and 1830s called attention to the increasing numbers of criminals, emotionally disturbed person, and paupers. Often these people were forced to live in wretched conditions and were regularly either abused or neglected by their caretakers. To alleviate this, many advocated setting up new public institutions. They hoped that the inmates of these institutions would be cured of their antisocial behavior as a result of being withdrawn from squalid surroundings and treated to a disciplined pattern of life in some rural setting.

14. Prison Reform More humane treatment of prisoners
Reform replaces punishment
Tried to house all in solitary

15. Abolitionist Movement
Immediate end to slavery
William Lloyd Garrison: Liberator
Frederick Douglass: North Star
Sojourner Truth: Spokesperson
Opponents of slavery ranged from moderates who proposed gradual abolition to radicals who urged immediate abolition and freeing slaves without compensating their owners. The religious quall of the time encouraged many northerners to view slavery as a sin. This view limited the possibilities for compromise and promoted radical abolitionism

16. Abolition and the Second Great Awakening
Viewed slavery as a sin
Led to radical abolitionism
American Colonization Society
American Antislavery Society
Liberty Party
Although the abolitionists did not end slavery they managed to bring the issue to the front burner in domestic concerns.

17. Argued that slave should rise in revolt
Violent Abolitionism
Argued that slave should rise in revolt
They argued that slaves should take action themselves by rising up in revolt against their masters. In 1831, a Virginia slave named Nat Turner led a revolt in which 55 whites were killed. In retaliation, whites killed hundred of blacks in brutal fashion and managed to put down the revolt. Before this event, there had been some antislavery sentiment and discussion in the South. After the revolt, fear of future uprisings as well as Garrison’s inflamed rhetoric put an end to antislavery talk in the South
Nat Turner Revolt

18. Origins of the Women’s Rights Movement
Grimke Sisters
Lucretia Mott
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Women reformers, especially those involved in the antislavery movement, resented the way men relegated them to secondary roles in the movement and prevented them from taking part fully in policy discussion.
Lucretia Mott

19. Seneca Falls Convention
The leading feminists met at Seneca Falls, New York in At the conclusion they issued a document closely modeled after the Declaration of Independence.

20. Declaration of Sentiments
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one portion of the family of man to assume among the people of the earth a position different from that which they have hitherto occupied, but one to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes that impel them to such a course

21. Utopian Societies
Separating from society and creating a community you see as ideal.
Some were religious, some were secular

22. New Harmony Robert Owen Indiana
Problems of inequity and alienation caused by the Industrial Revolution
Based on common and equal ownership of property
This was a secular experiment by the Welsh industrialist and reformer, Robert Owen. Hopes a utopian socialist community would provide an answer to the problems of inequity and alienation caused by the Industrial Revolution.

23. Fourier Phalanxes
Focused on theories of the French socialist, Charles Fourier
Horace Greeley
To combat competitive society, share everything.
Organized as joint stock companies
Charles Fourier's Phalansteres (1829) envisioned a new industrial world based on agriculture. These ideal communities were modeled after Versailles. The central wing contained all public functions while the side wings contained housing and workshops. The streets in this miniature town were not exposed to the weather (Frampton, p. 22).

24. Shakers United Society of Believers
Strict separation but equality of sexes
Property held in common
Died out by mid 1900s
The Shakers had about 6000 members in various communities by the 1840s. Help property in common and kept sexes separate. Obviously their numbers dropped quickly. They are remembered for their furniture

25. Oneida Community John Humphrey Noyes Oneida, New York
Perfect social and economic equality
Second coming of Christ had occurred and no need to follow moral codes.
Dedicated to an ideal of perfect social and economic equality, members of the community shared property and later even shared marriage partners. Many attacked the Oneida system of planned reproduction and communal child-rearing as a sinful experiment in “free love.” Prospered economically by producing silverware.

26. Transcendentalism
There is an ideal spiritual state that “transcends” the physical and is only reached through intuition.
Protest against the general state of culture and society at the time.
Romantic movement in art and literature dominated 19th century Europe. The US expressed these ideas through transcendentalism.

27. Transcendental Traits
Respect for intuition
Avoid competition
Critical
Solitary
Naturalist
Idealistic
Spiritual (not religious)
Transcendentalist argued for a mystical and intuitive way of thinking as a means of discovering one’s inner self and looking for the essence of God in nature. Their views challenged the materialism of American society by suggesting that artistic expression was more important that the pursuit of wealth
They were highly individualistic and viewed organized institutions as unimportant.

28. Brook Farm
Brook Farm was created by George Ripley, a Unitarian minister, as a haven for transcendentalists. His goal was to achieve a balance between intellectual and manual labor. It is remembered for its atmosphere of artistic creativity and innovative school that attracted the sons and daughters of New England's intellectual elite.

29. Important People Ralph Waldo Emerson – essays and poems
Henry David Thoreau- Walden and On Civil Disobedience.
Unitarian Church
Emerson's work stress self-reliance, independent thinking and the importance of spiritual matters over material ones. He was a leading critic of slavery in the 1850s
Thoreau conducted a two-year experiment of living by himself in the woods outside town. He is remembered today as a pioneer ecologist and conservationist.
In “On Civil Disobedience,” Thoreau becomes an early advocate of nonviolent protest. He argues that man should not obey unjust laws. One method is to refuse to use a tax that might be used in an immoral way.