Overview
Religious revivals and reform movements grew in 19th-century America in response to industrialization. Protestant groups led these efforts, with abolitionism as the era’s most significant reform.
Utopian Communities
- Shakers practiced celibacy, gender equality, and communal living, funding themselves through furniture making. Numbers peaked at 6,000 but fell due to celibacy.
- Mormons (Latter Day Saints) faced persecution and moved from New York to Utah, growing around the Book of Mormon.
- Brook Farm (1841), by transcendentalists, tried combining labor and intellectual work, but failed as few enjoyed the farm work.
- Josiah Warren’s Utopia, Ohio, and Modern Times, New York, relied on extreme individualism and voluntary arrangements, collapsing quickly.
Second Great Awakening
- Peaked in the 1820s–30s, centered in New York's "burned-over district," led by Charles Grandison Finney.
- Ministers rose from 2,000 to 40,000 by 1845.
- Joseph Smith’s revelations (LDS) and the Oneida Community began here. Oneida later became a silverware company.
- Stressed individual salvation, faith, self-control, and hard work.
Reform Movement Characteristics
- Predominantly Protestant, so less appeal to Catholic immigrants.
- Stressed perfectionism: continual personal and social improvement.
- Defined freedom as self-discipline over personal license.
- Methodists and Baptists encouraged improving society, not just avoiding sin.
Temperance Movement
- In 1830, Americans averaged 7 gallons of liquor per year.
- Protestant reformers aimed to limit or ban alcohol for moral reasons.
- Many Catholic immigrants (German, Irish) opposed temperance, as their faith saw alcohol as acceptable.
- The movement highlighted religious and cultural divides.
Institutions and Education
- Reformers established asylums, jails, and poorhouses to protect people from sinful influences.
- State-funded “common schools” spread in the North by 1860; Horace Mann advocated education for social mobility.
- Some parents opposed moral instruction in schools; the South resisted public education, especially for slaves.
Abolitionism
- The largest reform, focused on ending slavery.
- Early opposition came from slaves, free blacks, and Quakers; colonization efforts led to Liberia but most blacks rejected emigration.
- William Lloyd Garrison’s The Liberator (1831) pushed immediate emancipation.
- American Anti-Slavery Society had 100,000 Northern members by 1843.
- Abolitionists wanted both freedom and full citizenship for blacks.
Resistance to Abolitionism
- Resistance was often violent: Pennsylvania Hall burned (1838), Elijah P. Lovejoy killed for anti-slavery work.
- Congress enacted the gag rule (1836) to block discussion of slavery.
- Black abolitionists like Frederick Douglass and Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin exposed the horrors of slavery; the book was banned in the South.
Key Figures in Abolition
- Frederick Douglass: Former slave and leading voice for equality.
- David Walker: Encouraged black resistance, referenced the Haitian Revolution.
- Henry Highland Garnett: Black abolitionist leader.
- William Lloyd Garrison: Radical abolitionist publisher.
- Harriet Beecher Stowe: Wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
Key Terms & Definitions
- Perfectionism: Belief in unlimited personal and social improvement.
- License: Unrestricted freedom, seen negatively by reformers.
- Freedom (19th century): Rooted in self-discipline, not lack of restraint.
- Burned-over district: New York's center of religious revivalism.
- Common schools: State-funded public education.
- Gag rule: Congressional ban on slavery debate (1836).
- Colonizationism: Effort to send former slaves to Africa (Liberia).