SOCIETY AND CULTURE OF THE 1800S

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SOCIETY AND CULTURE OF THE 1800S
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SOCIETY

• Social structure
• Favorable social mobility
• Three classes Elite, Middle, Poor
• Families
• Change in marriage
• Change in parenting
• Cult of Domesticity
• Emphasized gender roles, especially in Middle
  Class homes
• Men work outside the home, Women work inside the
  home
• Republican Motherhood
• Women show their patriotism and political values
  by raising sons to be good citizens

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ARTS LITERATURE

• Painting
• Hudson River School-fascination with natural
  world, landscapes
• Architecture
• Greek style columns
• Literature
• Nationalism-American authors themes
• Washington Irving wrote?
• James Fennimore Cooper wrote ?
• Nathaniel Hawthorn wrote?
• Herman Melville wrote?

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ENTERTAINMENT

• Museums
• Charles Wilson Peale
• American Lyceum Movement
• Traveling lecture program
• Bowery Boys Gals
• Urban underground city life
• Minstrel Shows
• Comedic, racist, nativist

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RELIGION

• 1820s-1830s-2nd Great Awakening
• North-Burned-over District (NY)
• Groups played major role in social reforms
• Revivals
• Charles Finney-Perfection and helping society
• South-increase in Baptists Methodists, by 1850
  largest protestant groups in US

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RELIGION

• Examples of new religions
• Millennialism
• Also called Millerites
• Prominent belief-world would end on Oct. 21, 1844
• After the date-religion declined
• Led to Seventh-Day Adventists

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RELIGION

• Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
• Known as Mormons
• Established in Burned-over district
• Utopian community
• Common property
• Polygamy
• Helped to settle the west

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RELIGION

• Shakers
• 6000 in 1840s
• Believed in common property
• Separated men women
• Women equal to men
• Financially stable due to furniture making
• Died out in the mid 1900s-no new recruits

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TRANSCENDENTALISTS

• Movement in Literature that led to change in
  society
• Famous authors
• Ralph Waldo Emerson-Leaves of Grass
• Henry David Thoreau-Walden
• Essay-On Civil Disobedience influenced Gandhi
  MLK jr.
• Questioned established religions
• Believed artistic expression more important then
  the pursuit of wealth
• Supported variety of reforms-especially abolition
  of slavery

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TRANSCENDENTALISTS
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TRANSCENDENTALISTS

• Formed 1st Utopian experiment
• 1841
• Brook farm in Massachusetts
• Led by George Ripley
• Study the natural union between intelligence
  manual labor
• Most famous member-Nathaniel Hawthorn
• Attracted the New England elite
• Ended in 1849-due to debts and a fire

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COMMUNAL EXPERIMENTS

• New Harmony
• Indiana
• Robert Owen
• Political-Socialists
• Common property
• Failed due to finances arguments

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COMMUNAL EXPERIMENTS

• Grahamanites
• Sylvester Graham
• 1830s in Massachusetts
• Purity of body
• First vegetarian
• Believed in whole wheat graham bread, fruits,
  vegetables, cold water, exercise
• Condemned tobacco, coffee, tea, alcohol, white
  flour

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COMMUNAL EXPERIMENTS

• Oneida
• Highly Controversial
• John Noyes
• New York (1848)
• Common property-included partners
• Religious belief-marriage interfered with love of
  God
• Planned reproduction child-rearing
• Equality to women
• Economically prosperous due to production of high
  quality silverware

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REFORMS

• All began as persuasion through sermons
  pamphlets, then moved to political action
• Temperance-prohibit alcohol
• 1826-American Termperance Society
• 1840s-water served during parties in middle class
  households
• Immigrants largely opposed-no political power
• Factory Owners politicians joined with
  reformers-Why?
• 1851 Maine becomes 1st state to prohibit the
  manufacture sale of alcohol
• Late 1850s, overshadowed by anti-slavery reforms

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REFORMS

• Mental Hospitals
• Dorothea Dix
• Professional treatment at state expense
• Prisons
• Structure discipline would bring moral reform
• Auburn System (NY)-discipline but also moral
  instruction and work programs
• Education
• Horace Mann
• 1840s-tax supported public school system
• Compulsory attendance
• Longer school year
• Teacher Preparation Academies
• McGuffey Reader-virtues of hard work sobriety

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REFORMS

• Womens Rights Movement
• Many women participated in reform movements
• Sarah Angelina Grimke-Letter on the Condition
  of Women the Equity of the Sexes (1837)
• Lucretia Mott Elizabeth Cady Stanton
• Seneca Fall Convention (1848) in NY
• Wrote document modeled after Declaration of
  Independence
• Declaration of Sentiments
• Listed womens grievances against the government
• Stanton Susan B. Anthony begin the campaign for
  voting rights
• 1850s overshadowed by Abolitionists

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