1. Unit 4 Part 3: Reform Era – The Second Great Awakening

2. 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.”

3. Second Great Awakening
Reaction against enlightenment & deism
Again trying to get more people to go to church
More emotional and evangelical faith
Charles Finney
Emphasized personal role in salvation
Led tent revivals throughout the North

4. Perfectionism
Faith in human capacity to achieve a better life through conscious acts of will

5. 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

6. Mormon Trek Joseph Smith founded Mormonism in NY (1830)
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

9. 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

10. Shakers
Followers of Mother Ann Lee (followers thought she was a female Christ)
Community with no marriage, no physical intimacy, & social equality
Guess why they died out?

11. 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”

12. Basics of Transcendental Thoughts
Nonconformity
Fitting in with society will let you be corrupted by the evils of that society
Self-reliance
The only one you can trust to stay true to yourself is yourself; follow your instincts
Free Thought
Don’t blindly follow what others tell you to do, especially with religion

13. Basics of Transcendental Thoughts
Confidence
Don’t question your instincts or who you are; do everything with a bold confidence
Importance of Nature
Becoming one with nature will let you remove yourself from reality and transcend the realm of rational thought

14. Henry David Thoreau Wrote Walden while living in a cabin.
Wanted to connect with nature
Also wrote “Civil Disobedience” & refused to pay taxes
Essay said that we have a responsibility to push back against things our gov. does that are unjust, like slavery or war

15. 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

17. Washington Irving James Fenimore Cooper Nathaniel Hawthorne
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

18. Hudson River School
Group of American artists who painted landscapes of the American wilderness.