1. Reshaping America in the Early 1800s
6.4: A Religious Awakening Sparks Reform

2. Reshaping America in the Early 1800s Lesson 4 A Religious Awakening Sparks Reform
Learning Objectives
Explain how the Second Great Awakening affected the United States.
Describe the discrimination that some religious groups suffered from in the mid-1800s.
Trace the emergence of the utopian and transcendentalism movements.
Analyze the goals and methods of the public school movement.
Evaluate the effectiveness of the prison reform and temperance movement.

3. Reshaping America in the Early 1800s Lesson 4 A Religious Awakening Sparks Reform
Key Terms
Second Great Awakening
revivalists
Charles Grandison Finney
evangelical
Joseph Smith
Mormons
Unitarians
utopian communities
Transcendentalists
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Henry David Thoreau
public school movement
Horace Mann
Dorothea Dix
penitentiary movement
temperance movement
Neal Dow

4. The Second Great Awakening
By the early 1800s, the United States was well established as an independent, growing country. During this time of optimism, as settlers pushed westward and industry encouraged economic growth, American society was shaken by a religious movement that inspired Americans to change themselves and the world around them for the better.

5. The Second Great Awakening
Second Great Awakening: revival of religious feeling in the starting in the early 1800s that lasted about 50 years.
Revivalists: preachers who wanted to revive or reenergize the role of religion in America
Gain salvation by improving themselves and their souls
Works well with individualism and self-reliance
We will end up improving society as well

6. The Second Great Awakening
Started in Kentucky and would sometime last for a week (Revival)
Charles Grandison Finney, Lyman Beecher
Evangelical – teaching of the gospel by eliciting strong emotions and trying to attract converts.
Sabbatarian reform movement – Christians who wanted Congress to pass a lay banning business transactions and mail delivery on the Sabbath.
African Americans starting in 1787 with Richard Allen (Philadelphia) created the African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1816.
African Americans found significance in the Bible. (Moses). Many slave revolt leaders said they were called by God to free people.

7. The Second Great Awakening
Joseph Smith – founder of Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Called Mormons
Unitarians – break away from the traditional “Trinity” and see God as a single being – a unity.
More liberal

8. The Second Great Awakening
During the Second Great Awakening, religious revival meetings were held in open fields. This illustration depicts an 1850s camp meeting of the Duck Creek Methodist Episcopal church in Ohio.

9. The Second Great Awakening
Analyze InformationHow did the Second Great Awakening affect church membership by the mid-1800s?

10. The Second Great Awakening
Analyze Data Based on this graph, what prediction can you make about Mormon church membership in 1910?

11. Religious Discrimination and Intolerance
The preachers of the Second Great Awakening were Protestant. By the mid-1800s, well over half of all Americans were also Protestant. Non-Protestants were in the distinct minority and faced discrimination.

12. Religious Discrimination and Intolerance
Mormons isolated themselves in their own communities
Polygamy
Became rich as they jointly held land
Voted as one
Nauvoo Illinois
Smith was arrested and sent to Missouri for treason charge – while in prison, a mob murdered him.
Catholics thought “undemocratic” and thus “unAmerican” as they followed the Pope. Also, most Catholics were Irish and poor – nativists views
Jews barred from holding office in the US.

13. Religious Discrimination and Intolerance
Displaced Mormons settled in Nauvoo, Illinois, in Nauvoo remained the center of the Mormon religion until Brigham Young led the Mormons to Utah in 1848.

14. Religious Discrimination and Intolerance
Analyze Maps Based on the map, why do you think the Mormons chose Salt Lake City for resettlement?

15. Utopias and Transcendentalism
In the early 1800s, many Americans turned to Protestant churches, while some formed new religious groups. Still others sought different routes to try to fashion a more perfect society.

16. Utopias and Transcendentalism
Utopian communities – places where people lived by different societal rules and usually practiced communal living.
Brook Farm and New Harmony – failed
Onieda Community – complex marriage (can’t be selfish), birth control, and eugenic selection. Also raised children communally.
Overtime made superior silverware
Shakers – ecstatic behavior during service – no marriage or sex – died out.
Transcendentalists – believed that people could go beyond (transcend) logic or tradition in order to reach the deepest truths. Listen to nature, not religion.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Henry David Thoreau – student of Emerson
Jailed for not paying taxes to support Mexican War – immoral. Came up with Civil Disobedience – break the law for the right reasons.

17. Utopias and Transcendentalism
Analyze Maps In which region were communal societies concentrated? What factors may explain this distribution?

18. Utopias and Transcendentalism
Shakers built communities for their adherents such as Pleasant Hill in Kentucky.

19. Public Education Reform
The spiritual self-improvement inspired by the Second Great Awakening encouraged campaigns to improve and perfect society as well. Soon, many Americans began to put their religious ideals into practice by working to reshape, or reform, parts of American life. Their efforts would affect several groups of the most disadvantaged Americans.

20. Public Education Reform
Public school movement – tax supported public schools
Expanding education would give Americans the knowledge and intellectual tools they needed to make decisions as citizens of a democracy.
Horace Mann – school reformer – supported state run free schools required by law to attend

21. Public Education Reform
Some young people, like these students, learned subjects such as reading and mathematics at local schools. But most young people were taught by their parents or not at all.

22. Public Education Reform
Analyze Data Why might school enrollment have varied over time?

23. Social Reform Movements
Americans who had little or no voice in how they were treated were of special concern to many reformers. That was one reason why many reformers worked tirelessly to help Americans who were imprisoned or mentally ill. Women were at the forefront of these social campaigns. This in itself was an extraordinary change in American social history, as women had traditionally been discouraged from taking on public roles.

24. Social Reform Movements
Dorothea Dix – fought for social reform in prisons and hospitals in Massachusetts
32 state hospitals for mentally ill created
Penitentiary movement – not punish but make prisoners feel sorry for their crime.
Temperance Movement – effort to end alcohol abuse and problems created by it.
Led to violence and crime
Domestic abuse
Neal Dow – mayor of Portland Maine, got the law changed outlawing the sale of alcohol.
Carry Nation

25. Social Reform Movements
Dorothea Dix fought for social reform in prisons and hospitals throughout the state of Massachusetts. Her efforts contributed to the establishment of 32 state hospitals for the mentally ill.

26. Quiz: The Second Great Awakening
The idea that governments should not be involved in religious affairs is called
A. the anti-Sabbatarian reform movement.
B. evangelical revivalism.
C. anti-religious energy.
D. the separation of church and state.

27. Quiz: Religious Discrimination and Intolerance
In the 1800s, the political reason for anti-Catholicism was that
A. Protestants feared Catholics would be more loyal to the Pope than to the nation.
B. Protestants feared the government would establish Catholicism as the state religion.
C. Catholics had gained too much political power in Congress.
D. Protestants believed Catholics would try to end religious tolerance.

28. Quiz: Utopias and Transcendentalism
Rather than following religious doctrines, Transcendentalists believed that people should
A. supplement their devout religious practices with meditation.
B. cast aside all religious doctrines and focus on individualism.
C. listen to nature and to their consciences to learn the truth.
D. separate themselves from mainstream society.

29. Quiz: Public Education Reform
A key reason Noah Webster's The American Spelling Book gained such popularity was that it
A. emphasized America’s cultural independence from England.
B. emphasized America's connection to England and its heritage.
C. focused on a new American 'language' crafted from others.
D. taught a distinctly aristocratic form of the English language.

30. Quiz: Social Reform Movements
Among Dorothea Dix's accomplishments was
A. the passage of the 'Maine Law.'
B. the creation of the first modern mental hospitals.
C. the establishment of government-supported Sunday schools.
D. the dismantling of the national prison system.