An Era of ReformChapter 18

“Let Us All Speak Our Minds”

•How would you describe the mood created by the lyrics?

•Why do you think women would write and sing a song like this?

•To what extent do you think the complaints mentioned in the song are still valid today?

Read Section 1 - IntroductionPage 339

The Spirit of ReformSection 2

The Second Great Awakening

•Revival of religious feeling▫1800-1840

•Large mobs of people gathered in tents and churches to hear sermons

•Fire and brimstone preaching

Optimistic Ideas

•Ralph Waldo Emerson▫Former minister,▫Central figure in transcendentalist

movement

•Transcendentalism▫Go beyond logical thinking to reach true

emotional understanding •Believed every human has unlimited

potential

Ralph Waldo Emerson

•Writer, thinker and activist

•Champion of individualism

•Became friends with Henry David Thoreau in 1837

Optimistic Ideas

•“Transcend” purely logical thinking▫Trust emotions and intuition

•Questioned society’s rules

•Look for the “God within” you

Optimistic Ideas• Henry David Thoreau

▫Lived in solitude in the woods for two years

▫Wrote a 6000 page journal

▫ Jailed for refusal to pay taxes as a protest of Mexican-American War

Purpose of Walden

“To conduct an experiment:

Could he survive,

possibly even thrive, by

stripping away all

superfluous luxuries,

living a plain, simple life in

radically reduced

conditions?"

Walden Pond

From Walden

“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears.”

--Henry David Thoreau

Model Communities•Transcendentalist

villages▫Communes

•1841- George Ripley created Brook Farm near Boston

•Live in “brotherly cooperation”

Brook Farm

Model Communities

•Shared farming, teaching, clothes making, and other chores

•Brook Farm was one of hundred of communities started by reformers

•Powerful expression of belief that good people could create the ideal society

Q: What word describes a person who follows a philosophy that taught people to trust emotions and intuition?

A: Transcendentalist

Q: What was Henry David Thoreau’s approach to individualism?

A: He questioned societies rules and institutions

Prison ReformSection 3

Dorothea Dix

•Sunday School Teacher at a Boston jail

•Witnessed harsh treatment of children and non-violent offenders

Dorothea Dix

•Visited jails, prisons and debtors prisons

•Most people in debtors prison owed less than $20

•People in debtors prison couldn’t make money

Treatment of Mentally Ill•Locked in dirty,

crowded cells

•Whipped for misbehavior

•Dix and other reformers advocated treatment, not punishment

Campaigning for Better Conditions•Dix created a report for Massachusetts

legislature

•Created public asylums for mentally ill

•By Dix’s death in 1887, states abolished debtors prisons

•Created juvenile justice system

Q: Dorothea Dix dedicated her life to helping which group of people?

A: The imprisoned

Education ReformSection 4

Horace Mann

•Father of American public schools

•Worked on a farm as a boy

•Limited time in school due to farming

The Need for Public Schools

• Few public funded schools

• Wealthy parents hired tutors

• Most children did not attend school

The Need for Public Schools• Children in urban cities

stole, destroyed property, and set fires

• Reformers believed public education would help these children

• State of New York set up public elementary schools in every town by 1820

• Horace Mann became supervisor of education in Massachusetts

• Massachusetts citizens voted to pay more taxes for better schools, higher pay for teachers, and special training for teachers

An Unfinished Reform• By 1850, most white boys

in the north attended school

• Even northern states passed laws to keep African Americans out of schools

• Many public universities accepted women by 1860

An Unfinished Reform• Prudence Crandall was jailed in 1833 for opening a

school for African American girls

• Horace Mann became president of Antioch College in Ohio▫ One of the earliest co-ed schools

Q: What was the focus of Horace Mann’s reform movement?

A: Public Education

Q: Which group benefited most from efforts to establish early public school?

A: Boys

Movement to End SlaverySection 5

How could America call itself “the land of the free” and still allow slavery?

•By the 1830’s many people were asking this question

•These people were called abolitionists

The Struggle Begins• Some Americans

opposed slavery before the American revolution

• Quakers stopped owning slaves by 1776

• By 1792 all Northern states outlawed slavery

•Abolitionists didn’t always agree on how to end slavery

•Some tried to inspire revolts

•Others searched for a peaceful way

•Blacks and whites worked in the abolition movement

•One African American journalist remarked, “As long as we let them think and act for us . . . they will outwardly treat us as men, while in their hearts they still hold us as slaves.”

• William Lloyd Garrison started a abolitionist newspaper The Liberator

• Extremely religious

• Garrison demanded the immediate freeing of all slaves. “I will be as harsh as truth, I will not retreat a single inch—and I will be heard!”

• Angry proslavery groups destroyed Garrison’s printing press and burned his house.

Frederick Douglass Speaks Out•Garrison heard

Douglass speaking at a meeting of abolitionists

•An escaped slave

•Described harsh conditions of slavery to whites

Frederick Douglass• Quickly became a leader in the abolitionist

movement

• Autobiography was an instant best seller

• Eventually started his own newspaper, North Star

• “Right is of no Sex—Truth is of no Color—God is the Father of us all, and we are all Brethren [brothers].”

Women Get Involved

•Many women were inspired by religious reform movements

•Angelina Grimke spoke against slavery

•An anti-abolition mob threw stones at her

•Burned the building she was speaking in

•Women could not vote at this time

•Abolitionists were a minority, even in the North

•The antislavery fight helped pave the way for the women’s rights movement

Q:What was the name for people who were focused on eliminating slavery?

A: Abolitionists

Q: How did Fredric Douglass spread his message of freedom?

A:Newspapers

Q: What was an obstacle for women who were trying to end slavery?

A: They could not vote

Q: What motivated William Lloyd Garrison to join to anti-slavery movement?

A: His religious beliefs

Equal Rights for WomenSection 6

“What then can woman do for the slave, when she is herself under the feet of man and shamed into silence?”

-- Angelina Grimke

The Movement Begins

•Sparked by the friendship between Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton

•Met in 1840 at the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London

•Outraged that women could not speak at the convention

•The men who ran the convention made women sit in the balcony, behind a curtain.

Lucretia Mott

•47 years old

•Mother of four children

•Active reformer

Elizabeth Cady Stanton• 25 years old and newly

married never spoken in public

• As a young girl, she had overheard women beg her father, a judge, to protect them from husbands who had beaten them

• Attended Troy Female Seminary, the nation’s first high school for girls

Unequal Treatment

•Fine education like Stanton’s did not mean equal treatment

Elizabeth Blackwell•Country’s first female

doctor

•Studied mathematics, science, and history

•Rejected by 29 medical schools before one finally accepted her

The Seneca Falls Convention •Women’s convention in Seneca Falls, New

York

•Nearly 300 people, including 40 men

•Local housewives, farmers, and factory workers

Declaration of Sentiments

•Proposal for women’s rights

•Based on the Declaration of Independence

•“We hold these truths to be self-evident,” the document began, “that all men and women are created equal.”

Declaration of Sentiments

•Stanton’s presentation of the declaration at the convention was her first speech

•Listed “acts of tyranny”

Debate About the Right to Vote

•Stanton proposed that women demand the right to vote

•Stanton receives support from Fredric Douglass

•Convention approves the final resolution

Legacy of Seneca Falls

•Created an organized campaign for women’s rights

•Control over property and wages

•Liberal divorce laws

•Eventually…The right to vote

Q: In which ways were the lives of slaves and women similar?

A: Both groups were denied rights

Q:Why did Elizabeth Blackwell have a difficult time getting into medical school?

A: Most medical schools would not accept women

Q: What was being denied to women in 1848?

A: Control over property and wages

Q: What was the model for the Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments?

A: Declaration of Independence

Q: What was an immediate effect of the Seneca Falls Convention?

A: It created an organized campaign for women’s rights