Antebellum Reform and The Women

1
Antebellum Reform and The Womens Rights Movement

• From Domestic Ideology
• to Seneca Falls

2
Defining the Reform Impulse

• Perfectionist Attitude Lets Remake the World
• Variety of Reforms
• Men Lead, but Women Form Grass Roots

3
Why Reform? Religion is One Answer

• Second Great Awakening and Evangelical Religion
• Sense of both sinfulness and choice

4
Women Dominated Evangelical Religion
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Market Revolution (Surprise!) Encouraged Reform

• Greater Circulation of Ideas and the
  Organizational Impulse

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Market Revolution (Surprise!) Encouraged Reform

• Greater Circulation of Ideas and the
  Organizational Impulse
• Loss on Control, Especially in Urban Areas

7
What political party was more likely to support
reform?

• A. Democratsthey believed in giving ordinary
  people greater voice in politics.
• B. Whigsthey had most of their support from the
  middle class.

8
From Domestic Ideology to Public Life

• MORAL
• REFORM
• (temperance)
• (abolitionism)

Religion (Evangelicalism) Republicanism Market
Revolution
Public Life Organizations, Petitions, Speaking
Domestic Ideology
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Crucial Reform Movement The Abolitionists

• Key figure William Lloyd Garrison (Began
  Publishing The Liberator in 1831 at Age 26)
• Radical Demands for Immediate Abolition, Complete
  Equality
• Free Blacks, Women Important

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New England and Northeast Center of Abolitionism
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Abolitionists Slavery Violated Domestic Ideology
Religion
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(No Transcript)
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Were the Abolitionists Popular in the North?

• A. Yesthe antislavery movement fueled the Civil
  War.
• B. Nothey challenged too many fundamental
  assumptions.

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Were the Abolitionists Popular in the North?
NO!!!
Abolitionists Seen as Bad for
Business Unpatriotic Racially Suspect
15
Abolitionism Helps Create Womens Rights Movement

• Abolitionism provides women with opportunity to
  write speak in public.
• Natural rights ideology could be applied to women
  as well are women like slaves?
• Some abolitionists (Garrison) supported womens
  rights.

16
Not for Ourselves AloneElizabeth Cady Stanton
and Susan B. Anthony

• Documentary by Ken Burns

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Important Questions!

• What is important about the background of Stanton
  and Anthony?
• What was the most controversial subject at the
  Seneca Falls Convention?
• Why was the Declaration of Sentiments so
  powerfuland controversialin the 1840s?

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Questions to Ponder Over the Weekend

• Was there a big difference between moral
  authority and political power?
• Why Did Most Women in the Nineteenth-Century
  OPPOSE the Womens Rights Movement?