america’s spiritual awakening
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Section 1 Chapter 13. America’s Spiritual Awakening. How did religion affect Americans during the Second Great Awakening? What were the transcendentalists’ views of American society? What were some ideas of the romantic movement?. Focus Questions. - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
AMERICA’S SPIRITUAL AWAKENING
Section 1Chapter 13
FOCUS QUESTIONS How did religion affect Americans
during the Second Great Awakening? What were the transcendentalists’
views of American society? What were some ideas of the romantic
movement?
THE SECOND GREAT AWAKENING Starting in the 1790’s the Christian renewal
known as the Second Great Awaking began Charles Grandison Finney was an important
leader of the second great awakening He was a lawyer that decided to leave his career
and preach around the country He preached that sin was avoidable and told his
converts to do good deeds He also held prayer meetings that would last for
days
THE SECOND GREAT AWAKENING Minister Lyman Beecher
of Boston was angered at Finney’s message and vowed that if he attempted to come to Boston he would “fight every inch of him”
The challenges on faith drew more people to Christianity during this time (especially women and African-Americans)
TRANSCENDENTALISM AND UTOPIAN COMMUNITIES
Some New England writers and thinkers founded transcendentalism– the belief that people could transcend, or rise above, the material things in life, such as money
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, and Henry David Thoreau were all transcendentalists
Emerson wrote “Self-Reliance” in 1841– Americans depended too much on institutions and traditions
TRANSCENDENTALISM AND UTOPIAN COMMUNITIES
Thoreau did not trust institutions and lived alone in a small cabin in Massachusetts (wrote about the experiences living near Walden Pond)
In the 1840s some transcendentalists formed a community at Brook Farm, Massachusetts
TRANSCENDENTALISM AND UTOPIAN COMMUNITIES
It did not last long but it was an attempt at utopian communities-- tried to from a perfect society on earth
There were several utopian societies that formed around the country but they failed because they could not get their community to work well enough together
THE AMERICAN ROMANTICS Painters and writers were also shaped
by spirituality, the simple life, and nature
Romantic artists as they came to be called painted the American landscape
Thomas Cole was one such artist
THE AMERICAN ROMANTICS During the same time
the number of notable American authors grew
Ann Sophia Stephens wrote historical fiction
Nathanial Hawthorne wrote one such book entitled The Scarlet Letter which depicted Puritan life (also wrote Moby-Dick)
THE AMERICAN ROMANTICS Edgar Allan Poe
became famous for his short stories (“The Raven”)
Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman were two very famous American poet
THE AMERICAN ROMANTICS Dickinson only
published two poems anonymously during her life but after her death many poems were found in her home and published
Whitman praised both American individualism and democracy in his simple poems
FOCUS QUESTIONS How did religion affect Americans
during the Second Great Awakening? What were the transcendentalists’
views of American society? What were some ideas of the romantic
movement?