Reforming Society1820-1860

Shannon, Sarah, and Leah

Reforming Society

● Objective: to improve behavior through moral persuasion

● Moved to political actions to replace the old institutions

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Temperance - High rate of alcohol

consumption (5 gallons per person)

- Cause of social ills and caused temperance to become the most popular reform movement

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Moral Extortion- 1826- American Temperance society - Persuaded drinkers to take a pledge of

abstinence- 1840- group of recovering alcoholics formed

the Washingtonians- Argued alcoholism was a disease needing

treatment

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1.Movement for Public Asylum

- Criminals, Emotionally Disturbed, and Paupers

Living in unsafe living conditions: Prisons, Mental Hospitals, and

Poorhouses.

Mental Hospitals- Dorothea Dix launched a cross-country crusade,

publicizing the awful treatment she had seen.

(unsanitary cells)

- 1840s- state legislature built new mental hospitals

and improved existing institutions and patients

received professional treatment

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Schools for the Blind and Deaf- Thomas Gallaudet opened school for the deaf

- Dr. Samuel Gridley opened school for the blind

- 1850s- special schools modeled after the work of

these reformers and established many within states

of the Union

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Prisons- Pennsylvania took the lead of prison preforms

- Only emphasized punishment not rehabilitation for prisons

- Reformers built penitentiaries instead of crude jails

- They placed prisoners in solitary confinement to reflect upon

religious morals

- Stopped due to high rate of prison suicide

- Similar experiment in New York enforce rigid rules of

discipline while providing moral instructions and work

programs.

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Public Education

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Public EducationFree Common schools

- Horace Mann leader of the advocate of the common (public) school movement

- 1840’s-movement for public schools spread rapidly to other states.

Moral Education- Educational reformers

wanted children to learn literacy and moral principles.

- William McGuffey-Pennsylvania teacher

- Roman Catholics founded private schools for the instruction of Catholic children.

Higher Education- Second Great Awakening - In the beginning of the 1830’s

Protestant denominations founded small denominational colleges

- Colleges began to admit women.

- Adult education was furthered by lyceum lecture societies

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Changes in Family Roles for Women

Cult of Domesticity- Farm families: men were moral leaders

- Men in office/factory: absent from family

- Women: care of household and children

- Idealized view of women as moral leaders in house =

cult of domesticity

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Women’s Rights- Women reformers resented neglection to

secondary roles in the household

- Prevented women from fully taking part in

political discussions

- Sarah and Angelina Grimke, objected the male

opinion by writing the Letter on the Condition of

Women and the Equality of the Sexes (1837)

- Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton,

campaigned for women’s rights

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“We Abolition women are turning the world upside down”

Seneca Falls Convention(1848)- First women’s rights convention in

American history

- “Declaration of Sentiments” stating “all

men and women are created equal”

- Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B.

Anthony campaigned for equal voting,

legal and property rights

- 1850s women’s rights issues was

overshadowed by the slavery crisis

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Women of Seneca Falls 1848

Anti-slavery Movement15

American Colinialization Anti-slavery Society- 1817- transporting freed slaves to

an African colony was first tried- 1822- the American Colonization

Society established an African-American settlement

- Between 1820 and 1860, only about 12,000 African Americans were settled in Africa

- the slave population increased by 2.5 million.

- 1831, William Garrison began publication of an abolitionist newspaper

- Garrison advocated immediate abolition of slavery in every state and territory without compensating the slave owners.

- 1833- Garrison and other abolitionists founded the American Antislavery Society.

- Wanteds to burn the Constitution as a pro-slavery document.

- He argued for “no Union with slaveholders” until they repented for their sins by freeing their slaves.

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Liberal Party- Garrison’s radicalism led to split abolitionists

movement.- 1840, a group of northerners formed the Liberty

party, Garrison’s moral crusade.- In 1840 and 1844 James Birney ran as candidate for

president.- Pledge: end slavery by political and legal means.

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Black Abolitionists- Frederick Douglass; a former slave-- Advocated political and direct action to end slavery and

racial prejudice.- 1847: Douglass started the anti-slavery journal (The North

Star)- Harriet Tubman and others helped organize the effort to assist

fugitive slaves escape to free territory in the North and Canada, where slavery was prohibited.

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Frederick Douglass

Other Smaller Reforms- 1828 American Peace Society; objective to abolish

war- Laws to protect sailors(from flogging)- Dietary reforms- Dress reform for women (Amelia Bloomer's-

pantalettes instead of long skirts)- Phrenology (pseudoscience- studied bumps on skull)

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Southern Reaction to Reform- “Modernizers” worked in the north- Southerners committed to tradition, public

education, and humanitarianism- Alarmed from the north’s support for

anti-slavery movement

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