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Improving Society
Reform movements initially focused on moral persuasion, hoping to change people's behavior through appeals to their sense of right and wrong. When sermons and pamphlets proved insufficient, reformers turned to political action and the creation of new institutions.
Temperance
High Alcohol Consumption: By 1820, the average American consumed five gallons of hard liquor annually, leading to social problems such as crime, poverty, and abuse.
Moral Exhortation: The American Temperance Society, founded in 1826, aimed to persuade drinkers to abstain completely.
Immigrant Opposition: German and Irish immigrants opposed temperance but lacked political power to prevent reforms.
Legislation: Maine prohibited the manufacture and sale of liquor in 1851, with 12 states following suit. However, the issue of slavery soon overshadowed temperance efforts.
Long-term Impact: The temperance movement gained renewed strength in the late 1870s and led to the 18th Amendment in 1919, which banned the sale of intoxicating liquors.
Movement for Public Asylums
Reformers aimed to improve conditions for criminals, the mentally ill, and the poor, who often lived in squalor and suffered abuse.
Mental Hospitals: Dorothea Dix's crusade exposed the inhumane treatment of the mentally ill. Her efforts led to the establishment of mental hospitals and improved care in the 1840s.
Schools for the Disabled: Thomas Gallaudet founded a school for the deaf, and Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe started a school for the blind. By the 1850s, many states had established similar institutions.
Prison Reform: Pennsylvania built penitentiaries to replace crude jails, using solitary confinement to encourage repentance. Although the high suicide rate led to abandoning this method, it reflected the belief that structure and discipline could bring about moral reform. The Auburn system in New York enforced strict discipline and provided moral instruction and work programs.
Public Education
Free Common Schools: Horace Mann was the leading advocate of the common (public) school movement. As secretary of the newly founded Massachusetts Board of Education, Mann worked for compulsory attendance for all children, a longer school year, and increased teacher preparation. In the 1840s, the movement for public schools spread rapidly to other states.
Moral Education: Mann and other educational reformers wanted children to learn not only basic literacy but also moral principles. William Holmes McGuffey created a series of elementary textbooks that became widely used to teach reading and morality. The McGuffey readers extolled virtues such as hard work, punctuality, and sobriety. Many public schools reflected Protestant beliefs, prompting Roman Catholics to establish private schools.
Higher Education: The religious enthusiasm of the Second Great Awakening helped fuel the growth of private colleges. Beginning in the 1830s, various Protestant denominations founded small denominational colleges, especially in the newer western states. Several new colleges, including Mount Holyoke College and Oberlin College, began to admit women. Adult education was furthered by lyceum lecture societies.
Changes in Families and Roles for Women
Cult of Domesticity: Industrialization changed roles within families. Men were absent most of the time, working outside the home. Consequently, women in these households took charge of the household and children, becoming moral leaders. This idealized view of women as moral leaders in the home is called the cult of domesticity.
Women’s Rights: Women reformers, especially those involved in the antislavery movement, resented being relegated to secondary roles. Sarah Grimké, in Letters on the Equality of the Sexes and the Condition of Women (1838), spoke out against discrimination. Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton began campaigning for women’s rights after being barred from speaking at an anti slavery convention.
Seneca Falls Convention (1848): The leading feminists met at Seneca Falls, New York, and issued the "Declaration of Sentiments," declaring that "all men and women are created equal" and listing grievances against laws and customs that discriminated against women. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony led the campaign for equal voting, legal, and property rights for women. However, the issue of women’s rights was overshadowed by the crisis over slavery in the 1850s.
Abolition Movement
American Colonization Society: Founded in 1817, this society aimed to transport freed slaves to an African colony. The society established Monrovia, Liberia, in 1822. However, colonization was impractical, as most African Americans did not want to leave the U.S. Between 1820 and 1860, only about 12,000 African Americans moved to Africa, while the enslaved population grew by 2.5 million.
American Antislavery Society: In 1831, William Lloyd Garrison began publishing The Liberator, marking the beginning of the radical abolitionist movement. Garrison advocated immediate abolition without compensation and founded the American Antislavery Society in 1833. He condemned the Constitution as a proslavery document and argued for "no Union with slaveholders."
Liberty Party: Formed in 1840 by moderate abolitionists, the Liberty Party sought to end slavery through political and legal means. They ran James Birney as their presidential candidate in 1840 and 1844.
Black Abolitionists: Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave, was a prominent abolitionist who advocated political and direct action. He published The North Star. Other African American leaders, such as Harriet Tubman, David Ruggles, Sojourner Truth, and William Still, helped organize the Underground Railroad to assist fugitive slaves.
Violent Abolitionism: Some, like David Walker and Henry Highland Garnet, argued for slaves to revolt. Nat Turner's revolt in 1831 resulted in 55 White deaths and brutal retaliation, ending antislavery sentiment in the South.
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