Second Great Awakening
• 1797 – 1859 • 1st Awakening had
occurred in the 1740s • 2nd began among frontier
farmers of Kentucky • Spread among
Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians
• Christians have a moral duty to improve society
• Let God in and gain admission to heaven through acts of faith
Charles G. Finney • 1792 – 1875 • Presbyterian minister • Allowed women to
participate in public prayer
• Taught that everyone has the ability to gain salvation through repentance and good works that demonstrate faith
• Planned and rehearsed his revivals
Lyman Beecher • 1775 – 1863
• Revivalist Presbyterian minister
• Father of Harriet Beecher Stowe
• Preached that citizens, not government ,are responsible for building a better society
• Strongly nativist and anti-Catholic
The Unitarians • Jesus not the Son of
God, but was an important teacher – there was no Virgin Birth, no miracles, and no Resurrection
• God is a unity, not a trinity (God is One)
• Still considered a Christian church
The Universalists • Believed in Universal
salvation – there is no Hell and God redeems everyone because He loves everyone
• God would not create a person knowing that they were doomed to eternal damnation
The Mormons • Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints • Started in New York, but
were victims of constant harassment
• Moved to Ohio, then Missouri, then the town of Commerce, Illinois in 1839
• Renamed the town Nauvoo
• After founder’s murder in 1844, Mormons resettled in Utah
Joseph Smith • 1805 – 1844 • Recorder of The Book of
Mormon – received from an angel – which describes how Israelites arrived in America around 600 BC and were later visited by Jesus
• Had numerous legal run-ins in Missouri and Illinois which eventually led to his arrest
• Murdered by a mob in 1844 while awaiting trial
Brigham Young • 1801 – 1877
• President of Mormon church from 1847 -1877
• Founded Salt Lake City, Utah
• 1st Governor of Utah
• Led the Mormons west to Utah to escape persecution
• Practiced polygamy, had 55 wives
Utopian Communities
• Attempts to establish socially perfect communities, usually through equal communal sharing of all work, responsibilities and rewards
New Harmony, Indiana
• Town was bought in 1824 by utopians under Robert Owen with the intention of building it into a perfect socialist community
• No private property, no money
• Community failed and was dissolved in 1829
Oneida Community, NY • Founded by John Noyes in 1848 in
Oneida, NY; lasted until 1881 • All members of the community
shared in work (making silverware) • Every man was married to every
woman in the community (called complex marriage or free love)
• Old women introduced young men to sex, while old men did the same for young women (to avoid pregnancies)
• Efforts were made to breed more perfect children by careful selection of breeding partners; children were then raised by the community rather than by specific parents
• Community reached maximum size of about 300
Brook Farm • Founded in 1841, near
west Roxbury, MA
• Transcendentalist community
• Citizens would share all labor, be each others intellectual stimulation
• Community collapsed economically after being destroyed by fire in 1847
Shakers • The United Society of Believers in
Christ’s Second Appearing • Founded by Ann Lee (who Shakers
believed to be the Second Appearing of Christ) in England; offshoot of the Quakers
• No marriage allowed, lifelong celibacy required
• Shakers would adopt orphans to keep communities alive
• All work and living quarters were divided by sex, but the sexes were equals
• Peaked in mid 1800s with about 6000 members, today only 3 known practitioners in the US
Tent Revivals • Traveling ministers
would set up tents and preach, often for up to a week at the time
• Singing, prayers, and motivational sermons, were all designed to whip up the crowd into emotional protestations of faith
Benevolent societies
• Developed in large cities and towns to spread Protestant Christianity
• Soon began to focus on social issues such as temperance, prison reform, education reform, and abolitionism
Revivalism and abolition
• Most revivalists were also staunch supporters of the abolitionist movement
• Taught that slavery was sinful; slavery destroys the soul of the master while it destroys the body of the slave
Neoclassical architecture
• Revival of Greek and Roman styles
• US modeled itself after the Roman Republic and the democratic ideals of ancient Greece
• Sometimes called the “Federal” style in the US
The White House • Built 1792 – 1800
• Burned during War of 1812, but restored by 1817
• Built onto in 1824, 1829, 1901, 1927, and 1946
• In 1950s, entire structure was rebuilt with a steel frame from the inside, out when it was found to be collapsing!
US Capitol • Built 1793 – 1811 • Burned during War of
1812, but restored by 1819
• Expanded between 1826 and 1863; small dome was added but soon replaced by the larger dome seen today
Monticello • Built 1768 – 1809 • Charlottesville, VA • Home of Thomas
Jefferson – he designed it himself
• Today, it is the only private home designated as a World Heritage Site by the UN
Alexis de Tocqueville • 1805 – 1859
• French
• Author of Democracy in America
• Toured US for 2 years observing how democracy was creating a uniquely “American” culture
• Determined America was a society where hard work and money-making was what drove people, where commoners never deferred to their “betters”, and where individualism was admired.
• Forerunner to “The American Dream”
Noah Webster • 1758 – 1843
• Published his first dictionary in 1806
• In 1826, published his “American” dictionary where he provided new American spellings of English words and included thousands of distinctly American words
Romanticism • Artistic and literary
movement that advocated feeling over reason, inner spirituality over external rules, individual over society, and nature over human-made environments
Hudson River School of Artists
• American artists who focused on painting distinctly American landscapes – canyons, rivers, scenes of wild, untamed frontiers
• Popular throughout 1800s
Washington Irving • 1783 – 1859
• Wrote The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Rip van Winkle
• Usually wrote under a pseudonym
• Perfected the short story as a true literary artform
Edgar Allan Poe • 1809 – 1849
• “Master of the Macabre”
• Wrote many poems and short-stories in the horror genre: The Raven, The Black Cat, The Cask of Amontillado, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Tell-Tale Heart
• Married his 13 year-old cousin (he was 26) but she died at 15
• Died of unknown causes (known to drink heavily)
James Fenimore Cooper • 1789 – 1851
• Wrote The Last of the Mohicans
• Wrote mostly about the frontier and relations between white settlers and Native Americans
Nathaniel Hawthorne
• 1804 – 1864
• Wrote The Scarlet Letter
• Wrote largely on man’s tendency to sin, resulting in his work being called “dark romanticism”
Herman Melville • 1819 – 1891
• Wrote Moby Dick
• One of the only Romantic authors to not be very popular during his own lifetime
Walt Whitman • 1819 – 1892
• Free Verse Poet
• Best known for his work Leaves of Grass
• Works described as obscene in his own time because of sexual frankness, homosexual themes
Emily Dickinson • 1830 – 1886
• American poet
• Wrote thousands of poems
• Obsessed with death
• Broke rules of poetry concerning structure, rhyme, and capitalization
• Famous recluse – did not leave her home for the last 30 years of her life
Transcendentalism
• Literary and philosophical movement
• Emphasized individualism and self-reliance over religion
• People need to “transcend” (overcome) the limits of their mind to embrace beauty and truth
• Hated conformity and “followers”
• Modern Day Hipsters…
Ralph Waldo Emerson
• 1803 – 1882 • Philosopher, lecturer,
essayist, and poet • Believed that all
things were divine because all things were connected to God
• Strong belief in individualism
Henry David Thoreau
• 1817 – 1862 • Author of Walden
and Civil Disobedience
• Early environmentalist
• Abolitionist • “That government is
best which governs not at all”
• Opposed taxes
Margaret Fuller • 1810 – 1850
• Author Woman in the Nineteenth Century – first major feminist work published in US
• Believed in women’s rights to education and employment; wanted prison reform and an end to slavery
• Died in a shipwreck
“Penny Press”
• Mass produced daily newspapers which became affordable for common people
• Focused on reports of fires, crime reports, marriages, gossip, politics, local news
Godey’s Lady’s Weekly
• 1830 – 1898
• Covered poetry, literature, and art primarily from women artists
• Included dress patterns, sheet music
• First magazine to copyright its material to prevent other publications from using it
Atlantic Monthly • 1857 – Today
• Focused on literary and cultural trends
• Founded and run by famous writers of the time: Stowe, Emerson, Longfellow, etc.
• Has published everyone from Mark Twain to Martin Luther King
Harper’s Weekly • 1857 – 1916
• Featured foreign and domestic news, fiction, essays on many subjects, and humor
• Became famous for its political cartoons by Thomas Nast