Religion Sparks Reform

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Religion Sparks Reform

• Section 81
• pp. 240-245

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Preview Questions

• What was the Second Great Awakening?
• What was transcendentalism?
• What did Americans attempt to reform?

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I. The Second Great Awakening

• Second Great Awakening
• Evangelical movement
• Dramatic religious conversions
• Focus on individual salvation and social reform

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I. The Second Great Awakening

• Revivalism
• Roving preachers set up revival camps
• Charles Finney Father of modern revivalism
• Increase in church membership

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I. The Second Great Awakening

• The Burned-Over-District
• Epicenter of revivalism Western New York
• Many new denominations
• Communal societies
• Reforms like abolitionism and temperance

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I. The Second Great Awakening

• The African American Church
• Democratic Churches expand religion
• Social, political, cultural centers

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II. Transcendentalism

• Transcendentalism
• Led by Emerson and Thoreau
• Truth found in nature, emotion, and imagination
• Dignity of the individual
• Promoted self-reliance, optimism, freedom
• Civil Disobedience
• Unitarianism
• Faith in the individual
• Reason and conscience as path to perfection

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III. Ideal Communities

• Utopian Communities
• Goal create a perfect place
• Inspired by idealism to improve mankind
• Not long-lasting

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III. Ideal Communities

• Shaker Communities
• Value sharing, gender equality, peace
• No marriage or children

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IV. School Prison Reform

• Asylums and Prisons
• Dorothea Dix
• Reformers emphasize
• rehabilitation and hope
• Education
• Set up publicly supported schools
• Education is essential to democracy