Antebellum Reform
Americans after 1815 embraced many religios and social movements in pursuit of solutions for the problems, evils, and misfortunes of mankind. These movements were generally more active in the Northern states.
Hudson River school of art: Americans painters also sought to achieve a sense of nationality in art. Flourishing between the 1829s and 1870s, the painter realized that the American landscape lacked the "poetry of decay" of Europe. Realizing this, they began to paint the awesomeness of nature in America.
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America: A French Civil servant, he traveled to this country in the early 1930s to study the prison system. DiA was a result of his observations. It reflected the broad interest in the entire spectrum of the American democratic process and the society which it had developed.
millenialism: In the 1830s, William Miller claimed the Second coming of Christ would occur in 1843. Following him were the Millerites. After the failure of his prophecies, his disciples divided into smaller Adventist groups of which the two largest are the Advent Christian Church and the Seventh-Day Adventists
Charles G. Finney: Known as the "father of modern revivalism," he was a pioneer of cooperation among Protestant denominations. He believed that conversions were human creations instead of the divine works of God, and that people’s destinies were in their own hands. His "Social Gospel" offered salvation to all.
Mormons, Brigham Young: Joseph Smith organized the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints after receiving "Sacred writings" in New York Unpopular because of their polygamy, they moved to Missouri, then to Nauvoo, Illinois. They were then led to the Great Salt Lake by Brigham young after Smith was killed.
Brook Farm, New Harmony, Onieda, Amana Community: Attempting to improve man’s life during industrialism, these cooperative communities, known as Utopian communities, were formed. These communities often condemned social isolation, religion, marriage, the institution of private property.
lyceum movement: Began by Josiah Holbrok in the 1820, lyceums were local organizations that sponsored public lectures. Lectures were held on such topics as astronomy, biology, physiology, geology, conversation. The spread of these lecture revealed the widespread hunger for knowledge and refinement.
Dorothea Dix: In 1843, after discovering the maltreatment of the insane in 1841, presented a memorial to the state legislature which described the abhor conditions in which the insane were kept. She, along with help from Horace Mann and Samuel G. Howe, led the fight for asylums and more humane treatment for the insane.
National Trade Union: Organized in 1834, this association was created after the New York Trades Union called a convention of delegates from numerous city centrals. Headed by Ely Moore, who was elected to Congress on the Tammany ticket, this union disintegrated along with a number of other national conventions with the Panic of 1837.
Commonwealth vs. Hunt: This decision deemed that the trade union and their strike techniques were legal, contradicting the traditional idea of unions being illegal under the conspiracy laws of the English common law. Although this was a milestone, it in fact did not open a new era for labor unions. Most judges still believed unions were illegal.
criminal conspiracy laws: Initially, trade unions were persecuted for their strikes because they were construed as illegal conspiracies under the common law.. The early unions strove for higher wages, shorter hours, union control of apprenticeship and a closed shop.
Oberlin, 1833; Mt. Holyoke, 1836: After it was established in 1833, Oberlin College was converted into the center of western abolition by Theodore Dwight Weld. Founded by Mary Lyon in 1836, Mt Holyoke College in Massachusetts is the oldest U.S. college devoted to women’s education.
public education, Horace Mann: The most influential of reformers, Man became the secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education. For the next ten years, Mann promoted a wholistic change in public education. Mann wanted to put the burden of cost on the state, grade the schools, standardize textbooks, and compel attendance.
American Temperance Union: The first national temperance organization, it was created by evangelical Protestants. Created in 1826, they followed Lyman Beecher in demanding total abstinence from alcohol. They denounced the evil of drinking and promoted the expulsion of drinkers from church.
Irish, German immigration- 1845-1854: In this single decade, the largest immigration proportionate to the American population occurred. The Irish was the largest source of immigration with the German immigrants ranking second in number. This spurred new sentiment for nativism and a new anti-Catholic fervor.
Nativism: The Irish immigration surge during the second quarter of the nineteenth century revived anti-Catholic fever .Extremely anti-Catholic, in 1835 Morse warned that the governments of Europe were filling the US with Catholic immigrants as part of a conspiracy to undermine and destroy republican institutions.
Women’s rights: Women could not vote and if married, they had no right to own property or retain their own earnings. They were also discriminated in the areas of education and employment, not receiving the opportunities that men possessed. This encouraged the development of educational institutions for women.
Lucretia Mott: 1848, Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton organized a women’s rights convention at Seneca Falls, New York, proclaiming a Declaration of Sentiments Months earlier, along with Stanton, they successfully worked for the passage of the New York Married Women’s Property Act which recognized women’s right to her separate property.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton: She along with Lucretia Mott planned a women’s right convention at the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Seneca Falls which sparked the women’s movement. She was also active in the fight for abolition and temperance, but was devoted to women’s rights.
Seneca Falls, 1848: Under the eye of Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, this convention adopted resolutions for women’s rights. Among those adopted were a demand for women’s suffrage and a diminution of sexual discrimination in education and employment.
Emma Willard: In 1814, Willard established the Middlebury Female Seminary where she devised new innovations in female education. She also established the Troy Female Seminary in 1821. She provided instruction in math and philosophy in which women could not take earlier. She led the fight for educational equality among sexes.
Catherine Beecher: Lyman Beecher’s daughter and a militant opponent of female equality, she fought for a profession in which females could be appreciated. With this, she discovered the institution of education in which women could play an important part in. In this profession, women became the main source of teachers.
"Cult of True Womanhood": The alternate ideal of domesticity, this slowed the advance of feminism. Because it sanctioned numerous activities in reform such as temperance and education, it provided women with worthwhile pursuits beyond the family.
American Peace Society: In a social reform movement, William Ladd led the peace movement by establishing the American Peace Society in 1828. He was joined in the peace movement by Elihu Burritt who founded the League of Universal Brotherhood in 1846 and promoted the 2d Universal Peace Conference held in Brussels in 1848
prison reform: Prison were meant to rehabilitate as well as punish. The Auburn System allowed prisoners to work together but never make contact and remain confined at night in a windowless cell. The Pennsylvania system made each prisoner spend of his/her time in a single cell with no outside contact.
