1800’s Movements in America

A Nation in Reform

Educational reformPublic schools began to

open to create an educated population of voters

Teacher’s began to be specially trained and their salaries increased

More schools openedSchool attendance

became mandatory through elementary school

High schools began to become more common

Horace Mann1796 – 1859President of the

Massachusetts SenateStepped down to head

the new Massachusetts School Board for 12 years

Established the standard other states would follow for creating public school systems and teacher-training programs

Calvin Wiley1819 – 1887North Carolina’s first

school superintendentChampioned creating

state standards for what should be taught in schools

More difficult to get children in school in the South because they were needed for farm work

Female EducationEmma Willard’s Troy

Female Seminary in NY (1821)

Mary Lyon’s Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in MA (1837)

Elizabeth Blackwell: 1st woman to earn a medical degree, built hospital for women and children staffed entirely by women

Why did reformers think education was important?

Why was it important that the government fund public schools?

Pause to think:

Prison reformInmates were not

separated by offense and prisons included the violent & mentally ill

Idea of rehabilitation rather than punishment began to take hold

States began to build modern prisons (penitentiaries) to house long-term prisoners

Mental health reformMentally ill received

no treatment, kept in prisons with common criminals where they received not even the most basic of medical care and were often tortured

The field of “mental health” didn’t exist yet

Dorothea Dix1802 – 1887Former teacher who

took up the plight of the mentally ill

Traveled and wrote articles to expose the abuses suffered by the mentally ill

Dorothea Dix Hospital in Raleigh was named after her in 1856

What do the efforts and career of Dorothea Dix suggest?

How did reform change the prison system?

How did the Mentally Ill receive a voice in reform?

Pause to think

Labor ReformFirst labor unions

began to form – pushed for higher wages, shorter workdays

Early unions had little success – ignored by employers, not supported by the government who saw them as a threat to American industry

Temperance MovementMen who drank often

neglected their familiesMany bars and saloons,

high rate of alcoholism, especially along the frontier and in large Eastern cities

1833: American Temperance Union created

1851: Maine banned sale of alcohol; by 1855 12 other states had done so as well

Do you think temperance or prohibition was a more realistic reform goal?

What role does religion play in these reform movements?

Pause to think

The Second Great Awakening

“Spiritual Reform From Within”[Religious Revivalism]

Social Reforms & Redefining the Ideal of Equality

Temperance

Asylum &Penal Reform

Education

Women’s Rights

Abolitionism

Abolitionist MovementMovement to end

slavery in the United States

Took on several different forms

Championed primarily by Northerners and women

Opposed slavery on moral grounds

GradualismEarliest form of

abolitionism called for the gradual freeing of the slaves – stop importing new slaves, then phase out slavery over time

Slave owners would be compensated for their lost property

South would have time to adjust its economy

American Colonization Society1816Called for freeing the

slaves but then sending them back to Africa

Helped establish country of Liberia in West Africa as a home for repatriated slaves

Too many slaves to be effective, too expensive to transport millions

Most slaves at this point had never seen Africa and didn’t want to go

David Walker1785 – 1830Free African-American

from Wilmington, NC who settled in Boston

Published “Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World”

Called for a violent rebellion by slaves;

pamphlet was banned throughout the South

Died under mysterious circumstances – murdered?

What was the life of a slave like?

Discuss “Slave Spirit” page 279

What were early forms of slave resistance?

Describe the life of a freedman?

Go Down Moses page 281

Pause to think:

William Lloyd Garrison1805 – 1879Editor of the

Liberator – an abolitionist newspaper in Boston

Demanded immediate emancipation of the slaves rather than any kind of gradual end to slavery

Founded American Antislavery Society in 1833 – by 1838 the AAS had over 250,000 members

Harriet Beecher Stowe1811 – 1896Author of Uncle

Tom’s Cabin, a novel which

exposed conditions under which slaves lived in the South

Made real to many Northerners how brutal the slave system could really be

Sarah & Angelina GrimkéSarah: 1792 – 1873Angelina: 1805 –

79Grew up on

plantation in South Carolina but became avid abolitionists

Wrote and gave speeches on the realities of slavery

Frederick Douglass1818 – 1895Born a slave, but escaped at

age 20Became a speaker and writer –

his autobiography was a bestseller

Convinced many whites that Africans were intelligent and capable of learning (many in the South had made claims that Africans were not)

Second wife was white, which cost him support of fellow African-Americans in his later years

Sojourner Truth1797 – 1883Born a slave in NY,

gained her freedom when NY emancipated all slaves in 1827

Became a famous abolitionist speaker, especially after her “Ain’t I a Woman?” speech in 1851

Born into slavery to Elijah and Delilah Jacobs in 1813, the daughter of slaves owned by different families.

Harriet Ann Jacobs grew up in Edenton, N.C.

Incidents in the life of a Slave Girl

Harriet Jacobs

Obviously, most people in the South opposed the abolition movement (Gag Rule)

Many in North feared the divisiveness that the movement would cause between North and South; they would rather maintain the status quo and avoid conflict

Some in North feared that freed slaves would all move North, flooding the job market and driving down wages

Others feared that if the South’s economy collapsed, it would send the entire nation into a massive economic depression

Reaction to Abolition Movement

Women’s Rights MovementWomen’s traditional roles in

the North began to change as fewer families worked on farms

As women began to take on more social roles and become active in reform movements, demand more political rights-

VoteDivorceown propertyAccess to birth control Video: “Not for ourselves” pt1

Lucretia Mott1793 – 1880First American

“feminist” to push for women to gain access to a voice in politics

Like many women, began her social activism with the abolitionist movement

Elizabeth Cady Stanton1815 – 1902Argued for women’s

suffrage, right to divorce, own property, and access to birth control

Also strongly supported the abolitionist and temperance movements

Susan B. Anthony1820 – 1906Traveled Europe and the

US giving 75 – 100 speeches each year for over 40 years

Also a force in the abolitionist and temperance movements

Arrested in 1872 for illegally voting the presidential election

Video: Not for ourselves pt2

Seneca Falls Conference1848, Seneca Falls. NYOrganized by Mott and

StantonIssued the

“Declarations of Sentiments and Resolutions” which added “and women” to the Declaration of Independence’s “all men are created equal”

Began the call for suffrage for women

What was the role of women in society?

What led women to become leaders in the various reform movements we’ve talked about?

How did women’s leadership compare to male leadership in the different reform movements?

What was the significance of the Seneca Falls Convention?

Pause to think: