REFORM MOVEMENTS OF
THE 1800S
Which reforms of the era had the
most lasting effect on the civil
rights and liberties of Americans?
What were the major reform
movements of the 1800s?
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Treatment of the mentally ill
Temperance movement
Abolition of slavery
Women’s rights
Education
TREATMENT OF THE
MENTALLY ILL
Leader: Dorothea Dix
GOAL: better
treatment of
persons with
mental illnesses
REASON: the
mentally ill were
imprisoned and
badly treated
Mental Illness and Prison Reform
Treatment of the Mentally Ill
• Over a two-year period, Dix investigated
more than 800 prisons, jails, and
poorhouses.
• She found the prisoners were often living
in inhumane conditions.
• Prisoners were often chained to the walls
with little or no clothing, often in unheated
cells.
Treatment of Mentally Ill
“I proceed, gentlemen, to call your attention to the
present state of Insane Persons confined…, in
cages, closets, cellars, stalls, pens! Chained,
naked, beaten with rods, and lashed into
obedience…”
Treatment of Mentally Ill
• As a result of Dix’s report, Massachusetts
passed a law to build mental hospitals
where mental illness could be treated as a
disease rather than a crime.
• By 1852, she had persuaded 11 states to
open hospitals for persons with mental
illness.
Temperance Movement
• Leader: American Temperance Union and
religious leaders
GOAL: to
eliminate
alcohol
abuse
REASON:
alcohol led
to crime,
poverty,
abuse of
family
Temperance Movement
• Reformers blamed alcohol for:
– poverty
– breakup of families
– crime
– insanity
TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT
• Another effect of the easy-to-get alcohol
was the abuse of wives and children.
Temperance Movement
• Alcohol abuse was widespread during this
time.
• Employers often paid part of workers’
wages in rum or whiskey.
• Workers took rum breaks similar to today’s
coffee breaks!!
Temperance Movement
Temperance Movement
Temperance Movement
Temperance Movement
Temperance Movement
Carrie Nation:
Bar Wrecking Crusades
• with individuals like Carrie Nation.
ABOLITION OF SLAVERY
• By 1840, nearly 2.5
million enslaved people
lived in the South.
• At one time, the North
also had slavery. By
1804 every Northern
state legislature had
passed laws to eliminate
it.
• The Southern economy,
though, depended on
slave labor.
ABOLITION OF SLAVERY
• Leaders: Quakers, Frederick Douglass,
Sojourner Truth, William Lloyd Garrison,
anti-slavery groups
GOAL:
end slavery
REASON:
it is immoral
for one
person to
own another
ABOLITION OF SLAVERY
• An organized antislavery
movement did not begin
until after the
Revolutionary War.
• A religious group, the
Quakers, started the
abolition movement.
Quakers had opposed
slavery since colonial
times. In 1775 the
Quakers organized the
first antislavery society.
ABOLITION OF SLAVERY
• In 1831 white abolitionist
William Lloyd Garrison
founded The Liberator, a
Boston anti-slavery
newspaper.
• In the first issue, Garrison
demanded the immediate
emancipation, or freeing,
of all enslaved persons.
• He urged abolitionists to
take action without delay.
ABOLITION OF SLAVERY
• The North had many
prominent African American
abolitionists.
• Isabella Baumfree, although
born into slavery in New
York, gained her freedom
when New York abolished
slavery. She changed her
name to Sojourner Truth and
vowed to tell the world about
the cruelty of slavery. She
began a tireless crusade
against injustice.
ABOLITION OF SLAVERY
• The most important
spokesperson for the cause
was Frederick Douglass.
• Born into slavery, Douglass
secretly taught himself to read,
although Southern laws
prohibited it.
• He escaped from slavery in
1838 and settled in
Massachusetts.
• He captivated audiences by
talking about his life in
bondage.
• He spoke out against the
injustices faced by free African
Americans.
ABOLITION OF SLAVERY
• In addition to his public
speaking, Douglass
edited a widely read
abolitionist journal called
the North Star.
• Douglass’s speaking and
writing abilities impressed
audiences that opponents
refused to believe he had
been a slave!
• In response, he wrote
three very moving
autobiographies.
Harriet Tubman
Underground Railroad
• Many abolitionists, like Douglass, did more than
lecture and write. They became “conductors” on
the Underground Railroad.
• The Underground Railroad began around 1817.
It was not an actual railroad but a series of
houses where conductors hid runaway enslaved
persons and helped them reach the next
“station.”
• Enslaved African Americans made their way to
the North or Canada on the railroad.
ABOLITION OF SLAVERY
“There was one of
two things I had a
right to, liberty or
death; if I could
not have the one, I
would have the
other.”
Women’s Rights
Leaders: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia
Mott, Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth
GOAL: obtain equal
rights for women,
including suffrage,
right to own property,
and education
REASON: women
did not have the
same rights as men
Women’s Rights
• Their involvement in the antislavery
movement and other reform movements
gave women roles outside their homes
and families.
• They learned valuable skills, such as
organizing, working together, and
speaking public.
Women’s Rights
• On July 19, 1848, the first women’s rights
convention opened in Seneca Falls, New York.
• Both male and female delegates attended the
convention.
Women’s Rights
• The delegates issued the
Seneca Falls Declaration
that “all men and women
are created equal.”
• Then the declaration
listed several resolutions.
One of them demanded
suffrage, or the right to
vote, for women. After
much heated debate, it
passed by a narrow
margin.
Women’s Rights
• Susan B. Anthony, a
powerful organizer,
teacher and reformer
for Temperance,
Women’s Rights and
Abolitionist Movement
• Lobbied for women to
have rights to children
and their salary
Education Reform
Leaders: Horace Mann
GOALS: to
educate all
Americans
REASON: more
Americans were
qualified to vote
and needed to be
able to make wise
decisions about
their government
“Education does better than to disarm the poor of their
hostility toward the rich; it prevents them from being poor.”
Education Reform
• American schools varied from section to
section across the country.
• As early as 1647, Massachusetts passed
a law requiring towns to provide schools
for their children. The rest of New
England adopted similar laws. The towns,
not the states, paid for the schools.
Education Reform
• Not everyone favored common schools,
also referred to as free, or tax-supported,
public schools.
• In the 1830s few people paid state or
federal taxes. As a result, many strongly
objected to paying taxes for public
schools.
Education Reform
• During the 1840s and 1850s, the flood of
immigrants into the United States helped
free public schools gain general
acceptance. Many Americans realized
that schools were the ideal agents to teach
American values to the new arrivals.
REFORM MOVEMENTS
OF THE 1800s
Which reforms of the era had the most
lasting effect on the civil rights and
liberties of Americans? Why?