XVI.

The Ferment of Reform and Culture, 1790-1860

A. Reviving Religion
1. Deists: relied on reason rather than Bible, but believed in Supreme
Being
a. Unitarian: One being, Jesus not divine, God = loving father
2. 1800 Second Great Awakening: camp meetings, traveling
preachers
3. Peter Cartwright: Methodist preacher, used muscle, strength to
convert
4. Preacher Charles Grandison Finney: women pray aloud, ↓
alcohol/slavery
B. Denominational Diversity
1. Richer ppl of E retained same religion, W and S changed to sects
2. Later, Methodists/Presbyterians split over political issues
C. A Desert Zion in Utah
1. 1830 Joseph Smith est. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day
Saints, Mormon culture, polygamy, vote as a unit, drilled
defensive militia
2. Killed 1844, Brigham Young led Mormons to UT, sea gulls saved
1st crop
3. Immigrants from Europe, others expanded UT, fed gov tried to
control b/c Young made governor 1850, no serious bloodshed
4. 1862/1888 antipolygamy laws by Congress delayed statehood until
1896
D. Free Schools for a Free People
1. 1825-50: tax-supported education, but schoolteachers bad and ill-
educated
2. Horace Mann: sec of MA Board of Edu, got ↑ pay, teachers, longer
hours
3. Noah Webster: published patriotic textbooks, dictionary
4. Ohioan William: published grade-school reader
E. Higher Goals for Higher Learning
1. Universities had narrow range of courses, no vitality
2. State-supported colleges in S: 1795 NC, 1849 U of VA (sciences,
modern languages: TJ)
3. Emma Willard: est. Troy (NY) Female Seminary, Oberlin College:
women and blacks, Mary Lyon: Mount Holyoke Seminary for
women
4. Magazines flourished but were short-lived
F. An Age of Reform
1. New reformists in everything rose
2. Debt imprisonment eventually disappeared, # of capital offenses ↓,
no more brutal punishments
3. Dorothea Dix: teacher-author protected rights of mentally ill
4. 1828 American Peace Society: William Ladd to promote peace
G. Demon Rum – The “Old Deluder”
 1. 1826 American Temperance Society in Boston against liquor:
promoted by T.S. Arthur 10 Nights in a Barroom and What I
Saw There
2. Neal S. Dow of ME: sponsored Maine Law of 1857, prohibiting
manufacture/sale of liquor, other states followed, but laws
later repealed
H. Women in Revolt
1. Women couldn’t vote, were legally beaten, but had respect, not as
many beatings as women in Eu
2. Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Dr.
Elizabeth Blackwell, Margaret Fuller, Grimké sisters, Lucy
Stone, Amelia Bloomer, leading advocates
3. Woman’s Rights Convention of 1848 demanded suffrage, equal
rights
I. Wilderness Utopias
1. Robert Owen 1825 founded New Harmony, but failed
2. 1841 Brook Farm in MA: brotherly/sisterly philosophy, failed b/c
fire, debt
3. 1848 Oneida Community in NY: free love, birth control, breed
superior children, made steel traps, silver plates
4. 1770s Shakers: Mother Ann Lee, no marriage or sexual relations,
religious
J. The Dawn of Scientific Achievement
1. Nathaniel Bowditch: wrote on practical navigation; Matthew F.
Maury: wrote on ocean winds/currents, but no basic science in
A
2. Professors Benjamin Silliman, Louis Agassiz, Asa Gray were
pioneer A scientists, disapproved of adapting from E
3. John J. Audubon: ornithologist/artist, Birds of America
4. 1793 Philadelphia yellow fever took thousands, medical standards
↓
5. Crude surgical methods, 1840s found laughing gas, ether as
anesthetics
K. Artistic Achievements
1. Mostly copied architecture, TJ was first A architect
2. Painting, sculpturing considered useless and obscene
3. Gilbert Stuart, Charles William Peale, John Trumbull good painters
4. Style later turned to landscape, people captured by daguerreotype:
photography by Louis Daguerre
5. Music starting to be more accepted
L. The Blossoming of a National Literature
1. A writings mostly political, practical, BF’s Autobiography was first
good non-religious book, after War of Independence, 1812,
writing ↑
2. Washington Irving won international acclaim for his books, also
“Rip Van Winkle”, “Legend of Sleepy Hollow”, was
 ‘ambassador’ to Old World
3. James Fenimore Cooper: 1821 The Spy about Revolution, The
Last of the Mohicans, compared natural purity to modern
civilization
4. William Cullen Byrant: “Thanatopsis” poem, wrote in NY
newspaper
M. Trumpeters of Transcendentalism
1. Theory: knowledge not found through senses (John Locke), but by
a higher light, bred self-discipline, reliance, dignity of the
individual
2. Ralph Waldo Emerson, revolutionary writer, poet, philosopher,
former minister, made speeches, was Transcendentalist
3. Henry David Thoreau: poet, writer, condemned slavery (like RWE),
wanted simple life, nonviolence, inspired Gandhi, Martin
Luther King, Jr.
4. Walt Whitman: poet, non-traditional, later revered for A style
N. Glowing Literary Lights
1. Professor Henry Wadsworth Longfellow of Harvard: popular poet in
both A and E, honored w/ bust in Poet’s Corner of
Westminster Abbey
2. John Greenleaf Whittier: poems against slavery
3. Professor James Russell Lowell: poet, essayist, literary critic,
editor, diplomat, political satirist, against slavery
4. Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes: poet, essayist, novelist, lecturer, wit
5. Louisa May Alcott (MA): Little Women, supported family
6. Emily Dickinson (MA): poetry, never published during her life
7. William Gilmore Simms from the S, wrote about colonial days, Rev.
War
O. Literary Individualists and Dissenters
1. Edgar Allen Poe: master poet, stylist, horror short stories, detective
novels
2. Nathaniel Hawthorne: Puritan, The Scarlet Letter, explored original
sin in people
3. Herman Melville: Moby Dick, good and evil
P. Portrayers of the Past
1. George Bancroft: sec of the navy, published history of the US in
1789
2. William H. Prescott: conquest of Mexico and Peru
3. Francis Parkman: struggle btwn F and E for NoAm
4. Most historians from NE, so mostly anti-southern/anti-slavery
Q. Timeline p. 354 (1700s, Shaker communities – 1855, Whitman’s Leaves of
Grass)