1. Changing American Life in the 19th Century
The Age of Reform
Changing American Life in the 19th Century
This is a picture from a Chartist movement (suffrage in Great Britain) in 1848.

2. People came to pray, sing, weep, & shout
2nd Great Awakening
Religious movement using outdoor revivals to convince people to return to a strong faith
People came to pray, sing, weep, & shout
Men & women became eager to reform their lives & the world around them…led to new reform movements

3. Temperance Movement
Organized groups called, societies, worked to try to stop the drinking of alcohol
Alcohol was viewed as the cause of much of the misfortunes in the world
Many women we concerned that men spent their wages on alcohol and not supporting their family at home

4. The slide has a link to a webpage that better explains the written words.

6. Industries & Labor Factories were noisy, unsafe, and work was boring
Workers wanted better conditions
They organized into trade unions
Eventually organized into labor unions
Other groups called for shorter hours and higher wages
140 strikes took place in & 1836 alone
Example: Lowell girls went on strike in 1836 demanding lowered rent and better conditions
Started in 1869, The Knights promoted the social and cultural uplift of the workingman, rejected Socialism and radicalism, demanded the eight-hour day, and promoted the producers ethic of republicanism. In some cases it acted as a labor union, negotiating with employers, but it was never well organized, and after a rapid expansion in the mid-1880s, it suddenly lost its new members and became a small operation again.
Seal for the Knights of Labor, first organized union in the United States

7. The English School, first public high school in America
Reforming Education
"Convinced that the people are the only safe depositories of their own liberty, and that they are not safe unless enlightened to a certain degree, I have looked on our present state of liberty as a short-lived possession unless the mass of the people could be informed to a certain degree." Thomas Jefferson, 1805
The English School, first public high school in America

8. Education Reform The Great Equalizer
By 1830s Americans began demanding better schools
Horace Mann set up first State Education Board in Mass.
Public schools began opening
Primarily in the North
Private grade schools and colleges also were opened by churches and other groups
A larger educated population began to emerge as opportunities opened to more people

9. Caring for the Needy/Helpless
Dorthea Dix led the movement to improve life for the unfortunate
She helped reform jails, mental hospitals
Thomas Gallaudet started a school for the deaf
Samuel Howe began a school for the blind

10. The Abolitionist Movement in America
Abolitionist movement began in late 1700s
1808 – International Slave Trade was banned
Sarah and Angelina Grimke were southerners who moved north to speak out against slavery
John Quincy Adams was a huge supporter of abolition
Represented men accused of rebelling on a slave ship

11. Abolitionists in America
William Lloyd Garrison
White abolitionist who called for the “immediate & complete emancipation”
Frederick Douglass
Most widely known black abolitionist/former slave
Sojourner Truth
Used personal narratives and worked for abolitionism & women’s rights/former slave

12. The Underground Railroad
Series of escape routes from the South to the North and to Mexico that were used by slaves to escape slavery
Slaves usually travelled by foot , but sometimes wagons, boats and trains were used
Most escaped slaves travelled at night to avoid detection and hid during the day in safe houses called “stations”
Harriet Tubman was one of the most famous “conductors” risking her life numerous time to help numerous slaves

13. Seneca Falls Convention 1848
July 1848, -Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott and others organized the first women’s right convention in Seneca Falls, New York.
The convention, attended by women and men, issued a Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions modeled on the Declaration of Independence.