Social Reforms
of the
1800s
(1820-1860)
The Second Great Awakening
• Why it emerged? - A reaction to a rise of Human
Secularism caused by the Enlightenment (science and
reason v. faith); and to an overall decline in church
attendance
• People turned to religion for direction with the rapid
social and economic changes
• Move from traditional Christianity to Evangelism
• Emotional, entertaining evangelists spread religious
fervor in countryside that had no churches by means
of circuit preachers (preachers that travel to
communities on horseback)
Characteristics of 2nd Great Awakening
• Evangelical- Christians would spread their faith
not by simply attending a building
• Circuit Preachers- Preachers who traveled
throughout new territory to meet the need for
those without churches
• Tent Revivals- also known as “camp meetings”
a call for members’ to serve Christ by knowing
Him and how He has “called” them to live
• Charles Finney- Invitation to congregation to
come down the aisle and to choose by “free
will” loyalty to Christ African Americans and
women EXTREMELY active
Religious Movements and NonReligious Spiritualism
• Utopians
• Shakers
• Mormons
• Transcendentalism
• Judaism in America
• Atheism
Results and Effects
[New Religions] Shakers, Mormons,
Baptist, Methodist, Protestant Dems.
Soared
[Utopias]
Also led to moral
and social reforms
Revivalism in the South?
Women’s
Temperance
Temperance
Rights
Education
Asylum
Asylum &
&
Penal
Penal Reform
Reform
Abolitionism
Abolitionists
• Movement to end slavery in the U.S.
• South opposed; claimed slavery was an
economic issue
• North tolerated until reading “Uncle Tom’s
Cabin” (author Harriett Beecher Stowe)
• Slaves sought freedom via “Underground
RR”
• Former Slaves, Harriett Tubman, Sojourner
Truth and Frederick Douglas strong voices
condemning slavery
Voices of the American AntiSlavery Society (1833)
Frederick Douglass (18171895)
1845  The Narrative of the Life
Of Frederick Douglass “I have
suffered under
the lash without power to resist”
1847  “The North Star” – anti-slavery
R2-12
newspaper
Sojourner Truth (1787-1883)
1850  The Narrative of Sojourner Truth
“Ain’t I a woman”
R2-10
Harriet Tubman
(1820-1913)
Helped over 300 slaves
to freedom.
$40,000 bounty on her
head.
Served as a Union spy
during the Civil War.
Never lost a single
passenger
“Moses”
Mentally Ill Reform
• Mentally ill were kept in cages, closets,
cellars, chained, naked, and beaten.
• Dorthea Dix-Religious
teacher; Visited jailshorrified by conditions
•Protested for separate
institutions for criminals
and mentally ill.
Prison Reform
• No emphasis on rehabilitation; only
punishment
• Protesters desired a system of reform
for criminals “Correctional System”
– Penitentiary system was created: cultivate
penitence “doing the time to pay for the crime”
– 1821  first penitentiary founded in Auburn,
NY, 1829 Eastern State Penitentiary – PA)
• Josiah Quincy (1820’s – NE prison
reformer) –established separate
facilities for juveniles
Temperance Movement
1826 - American Temperance Society
organized because consumption of
alcohol significantly increased & caused
social problems
Goal: To encourage complete
abstinence from drinking
Heavy drinking led to many social problems including:
Decreased efficiency of work
On the job accidents
Breakdown of the family
Poor health
Poverty
Movement was led by churches and
religious groups
Propaganda focused on the sufferings
of innocent mothers and their children
Temperance Unions
 Groups such as these pushed
for total prohibition
 Considered liquor consumption
to be morally wrong and
believed it should be prohibited
by law
 Their demands led to
experiments with more strict
laws
 After a few years, these laws
disappeared from everywhere but
New England
 Still, the movement drastically
reduced alcohol consumption from
1830-1860
 The Civil War stalled efforts by
reformers but it was later
revisited during the
Progressive Era (1890-1920)
Woman's Christian Temperance Union (1874)
Annual Consumption of
Alcohol
1720-1930
Reactions by Immigrants
-Attack on their culture, customs
-Germans, Irish
Results, Effects
-States begin to limit alcohol by
1. strictly license taverns
2. Adopt liquor taxes
-1846 Maine 1st state to outlaw
alcohol
- Mid 1800s, consumption
drops significantly
-1920, 18th Prohibition Am.
Education Reform
• Early Schools were
costly and religious,
they were utilized by
the privileged few.
• Parents were
considered the primary
educators
• Families relied on each
other and churches for
additional learning
– “it takes a village to raise a child…”
Horace Mann and “Common Schools”
• The leader of educational reform
was Horace Mann, a lawyer who
became head of the Massachusetts
Board of Education.
• Believed that education was the
“great equalizer
Early Public Schools
• Despite reformers efforts,
public school conditions
were poor:
– Lacked funding, books, and
equipment
– Teachers were poorly paid
and often poorly prepared
• Kids that went beyond the
elementary grades went to
private academies
• Public schools did not
become well established
until after the Civil War
1800’s Georgia school house
Women’s Rights Movement
• Many northern women were
involved in the abolitionist
movement
• Their involvement in suffrage
reform increased after the
World Anti-Slavery Convention
of 1840
– Women were excluded from
speaking at the convention and
were forced to listen from
behind a curtain
• Two female reformers, Lucretia
Mott and Elizabeth Cady
Stanton, decided it was time to
stand up for women’s rights
– They planned to hold their own
convention when they returned
home
Admission ticket to the Convention
and Declaration
TheConvention
Seneca Falls Convention
•
In July 1848, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, and
others organized the first women’s rights convention in
Seneca Falls, New York.
• About 200 women and 40 men attended.
• The convention issued a Declaration of Sentiments and
Resolutions modeled on the Declaration of Independence.
The first signatures on the
Declaration of Sentiments.
Seneca Falls helped create an organized campaign for
women’s rights, especially suffrage
However, women’s suffrage took decades
19th Amendment passed in 1920
Only one woman present at the convention lived to vote
The Seneca Falls Women’s Rights
Convention, 1848