- Reviving Religion
- Church attendance were regular in 1850(3/4 pop)
- Many relied on Deism (reason rather revelation); rejected original sin, denied Christ’s divinity but believed in supreme being that created universe
- Puritans of the past now-Unitarian faith(New Eng.)
- god existed in only 1 person not in orthodox trinity; stressed goodness of human nature
- belief n free will & salvation through good work; pictured God as loving father
- appealed to intellectuals w/ rationalism & optimism
- liberalism in relig started in 1800
- tidal wave of spiritual fervor that result prison, church reform, temperance cause, women’s movement, abolish slavery
- spread to mass through huge “camp meetings”
- E went to W to Christianize Indians
- Methodists & Baptist stressed personal conversion, demo in church affairs, emotionalism
- Peter Cartwright-best known of “circuit riders”
- Charles Grandison Finney were greatest of revival preachers
- led massive revivals in Rochester & New York
- Denominational Diversity
- revival furthered fragmentation of religious faith
- New York w/ Puritans preaching “hellfire” known as “Burned-out District”
- Millerites(Adventists)-Christ return to earth on Oct 22,1844 (didn’t come)
- New York w/ Puritans preaching “hellfire” known as “Burned-out District”
- widen lines bet. classes & region(like 1st)
- conservatives, propertied-Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Congregationalists, Unitarians
- less learned of S & E-Methodists, Baptists
- Religious further split w/ issue on slavery (Methodist, Presbyterians split)
- revival furthered fragmentation of religious faith
- A Desert Zion in Utah
- Joseph Smith(1830) came up(NY) w. Mormon & Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
- antagonism toward Mormons for polygamy, drilling militia, voting as a unit
- Smith died but succeeded by Brigham Young who led followers to Utah
- grew quickly by 1850s by birth & immigration from Euro
- federal gov. marched to Utah when Young became govnr. But no bloodshed
- polygamy prevented Utah entrance to US till 1896
- Joseph Smith(1830) came up(NY) w. Mormon & Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
- Free School for a Free People
- Tax-supported primary school was opposed bec, relate to pauperism & used by poor
- Gradually support bec. “brats” might grow up to be rabbles w. voting rights
- Free pub edu, triumphed in 1825 w/ vote power in Jackson elect
- ill taught & ill trained teachers
- Horace Mann fought for better school
- too expensive for many community; blacks exempt from edu.
- ill taught & ill trained teachers
- imp people-Noah Webster(dictionary); (Ohioan William H. McGuffey-Mcguffey’s readers)
- Higher Goals for Higher Learning
- 2nd great awakening led to building of small schools in S & W (mainly for pride)
- mainly on Latin, Greek, Math, moral philosophy (boredom)
- 1st state supported uni. in N. Carolina by Jefferson (dedication freedom from relig., poli)
- women thought to be bad if too educated
- Emma Willard-estab Tory Female Seminary (1821) &(Mount holyoke Seminary (1837)
- Libraries, public lectures, magazines flourished
- 2nd great awakening led to building of small schools in S & W (mainly for pride)
- An Age of Reform
- reformers vs. tobacco, alcohol, profanity, transit of mail on Sabbath, women’s rights, polygamy, medicines
- optimistic for a perfect society (women imp. in reforms)
- naïve & ignored problems of factory
- fought for no imprison for debt (poor lock in jail for less than $1)-gradually abolished
- criminal codes soften & reformatories added
- mentally insane treated badly (ex. Dorothea Dix fought-classic petition of 1843)
- agitation for peace(American Peace Society-1828)-William Ladd (had some impact till civil & Crimean war)
- Demon Rum-The “Old Deluder”
- drunkenness were widely spread
- American Temperance Society formed at Boston (1826)-“Cold Water Army”(children), sign pledges, pamphlets (anti-alcohol tract-10 nights in a Barroom and What I Saw There-Arthur)
- Vs. Demon Drink adopt 2 major line attack
- stressed temperance(individual will to resist)
- legislature-removed temptation-Neal S Dow “Father of Prohibition”
- sponsored Maine Law of 1851-prohibited make, sale liquor(follow by others)
- Women in Revolt
- women stayed home, w/o voting rights, (19th century)-better than Euro
- many women avoided marriage all together
- gender diff sharply w/ raising eco role
- women weak phy. & emotionally but fined for teaching
- men strong but crude if not guided by women
- home center of women(even in reformer Catharine Beecher) but many felt not enough
- joined abolishing of slavery, touched by reform
- women’s movement led by Lucretia Mott, Susan B. Anthony(Suzy Bs), Elizabeth Candy Staton, Elizabeth Blackwell (1st female medical graduate), Margaret Fuller, Grimke sisters (anti-slavery), Amelia bloomer (semi-short skirts)
- Women’s Rights Convention (1848)-Seneca Falls-NY
- Declaration of Sentiments-spirit of Decla of Inde- “all Men & Women are created equal”
- demanded ballot for women
- launched modern women’s rights movement
- temperately eclipsed by slavery but conditions improved
- Wilderness Utopias
- Robert Owen founded New Harmony (1825)--> confusion
- Brook Farm-Massa(1841)-20 intellectuals committed to Transcendentalism (lasted till 46)
- Oneida Community-practiced free love, birth control, eugenic selection of parents to produce superior offspring
- Shakers-communistic community (led by Mother Ann Lee)-1770 (can’t marry so extinct)
- The Dawn of Scientific Achievement
- early American interested in practical science than pure
- Jefferson & the plow
- Nathaniel bowditch-practical navigation & oceanographer
- Matthew maury-ocean winds, currents
- writers concerned basic science
- most influential US scientists
- Benjamin Silliman(1779-1864)-pioneer in chemist, geologist (taught in Yale)
- Louis Agassiz(1807-1873)-served at Harvard, insist on original research
- Asa Gray (1810-1888)Harvard-Columbus of botany
- John Audubon(1785-1851)painted birds
- medicine in US primitive, bleeding used for cure; smallpox, yellow fever kill many
- life expectancy low
- self-prescribed patent medicine common (often harmful)
- surgery tied people down
- early American interested in practical science than pure
- Artistic Achievement
- Us imitated Euro on styles
- 1820-50 was Greek revival (inde from turk)--> later gothic forms
- Thomas Jefferson most ablest architect of generation (Montecello & Uni of Virginia)
- Artists view bec. no leisure time; suffered from Puritan prejudice of art as sinful waste
- Gilbert Stuart (1755-1828)-painted Washington & competed w/ Eng artists Wilson Peale(1741-1827)painted 60 portraits of Washington John Trumbull(1756-1843)-captured rev. war in paint
- During nationalism upsurge after war of 1812-US painters portrayed human landscapes & romanticism
- Music shaking off bec. puritans frowned on non-relig singing
- “darky” tunes popular-Stephen Foster-“Old Folk at Home”(most famous)
- The Blossoming of a National Literature
- reading plagiarized from Eng
- poured literature to practical outlet (ex. Federalist, Common Sense(Paine),Ben Franklin’s autobiography)
- literature revived after war of inde & esp after war of 1812
- Knickerbocker group in NY
- Washington Irving(1783-1859)-1st USn int’l recog- The Sketch Book)
- James Fenimore Cooper(1789-1851)-1st USn novelist-leatherstocking tales(pop in Euro)
- William Cullen Bryant(1794-1878)-Thanatopsis(1st highly quality poems in US)
- Trumpeters of Transcendentalism
- literature dawn in 2nd quarter of 19th century w/ transcendentalist movement (1830)
- vs. Locke (knowledge from reason); truth not by observation alone but w/ inner light
- ndividualism, black or white
- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)-popular bec. ideal reflected US
- lectured Phi Beta Kappa Address “The American Scholar”
- urged US writers throw off Euro tradition
- most influential as practical philosopher (stressed self-gov, reliance, etc.)
- Henry David Thoreau(1817-1862)-condemned slavery : Wladen: Or life in the Woods
- On the Duty of Civil Disobedience-further idealistic thought
- walth Whitman(1819-1892)-Leaves of Grass(poems) “Poet Laureate of Demo”
- literature dawn in 2nd quarter of 19th century w/ transcendentalist movement (1830)
- Glowing Literary Lights(not associated w/ transcendentalism)
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow(1807-1882)-wrote poems popular in Euro “Evangeline”
- John Greenleaf Whittier(1807-1892)-poem cried vs. injustice, intolerance, inhumanity (social influence
- James Russell Lowell (1819-1891)-political satirist-Biglow Papers
- Oliver Wendell Holmes(1809-1894)-The last Leaf
- Women writers
- Louisa May Alcott(1832-1888)-massa(w/ transcendentalism)-Little Women
- Emily Dickinson-theme of nature in poems
- Southern literary figure-William Gillmore Simms (1806-1870)-“the cooper of the south”(many books-life in frontier, south in rev war)
- Literary Individualists and Dissenters
- Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)-“The Raven”
- invented modern detective novel
- fascinated by ghosts-reflect morbid sensibility (more prized by Euro)
- reflection Calvinist obsession on original sin & struggle bet. good & evil
- Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)-The Scarlet Letter (psychological effect on sin)
- Herman Melvile (1819-1891)-Moby Dick-bet. good & evil told in whale captain
- Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)-“The Raven”
- Portrayers of the Past(historians)
- George Bancroft(1800-1891)-found naval academy-published US history book
- “Father of American History”
- Wiliam H. Prescott-pub conquest of Mexico, Peru
- Francis Parkman-pub struggle bet. France & Eng in colonial of N. America
- Historians All from New Eng bec. had most books (anti-south bias; antipathy w. slavery)
- George Bancroft(1800-1891)-found naval academy-published US history book