The Ferment and Reform of Culture

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Chapter 15

• The Ferment and Reform of Culture
• 1790-1860

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Reviving Religion

• Church attendance was regular in 1850 (3/4 pop)
• Many relied on Deism promoted by Thomas Paine
• Deism is the belief that a supreme natural God
  exists and created the physical universe, and
  that religious truths can be arrived at by the
  application of reason and observation of the
  natural world.
• Puritans of the past now-Unitarian faith (New
  England)
• God existed in only one person not in orthodox
  trinity stressed goodness of human nature
• Belief in free will salvation through good
  work pictured God as loving father
• Reason, rational thought, science, and philosophy
  coexist with faith in God.
• Appealed to intellectuals.

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Reviving Religion

• Reaction against liberalism in 1800
• Causing the Second Great Awakening, tidal wave of
  spiritual fervor that result prison, church
  reform, temperance cause, womens movement,
  abolitionism
• Spread to mass through huge camp meetings
• East went to West to Christianize Indians
• Methodists Baptist stressed personal
  conversion. Peter Cartwright -best known of
  circuit riders
• Charles Grandison Finney were greatest of revival
  preachers

video
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Denominational Diversity

• Revival furthered fragmentation of religious
  faith
• New York w/ Puritans preaching hellfire known
  as Burned-out District
• Millerites (Adventists)
• farmer, a Baptist layman and amateur student of
  the Bible
• Christ return to earth on Oct 22,1844 (didnt
  come)
• Widens the lines between classes region
• Conservatives, propertied-Episcopalian,
  Presbyterian, Congregationalists, Unitarians
• Less learned of South East -Methodists,
  Baptists
• Religious further split w/issue on slavery
  (Methodist, Presbyterians split)

William Miller
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A Desert Zion in Utah

• Joseph Smith (1830) announcing that an angel had
  shown him a set of golden plates describing a
  visit of Jesus to the indigenous peoples of the
  Americas. Initiates Mormon Church of Jesus
  Christ of Latter Day Saints
• Antagonism toward Mormons for polygamy, drilling
  militia, voting as a unit
• Smith died but succeeded by Brigham Young who led
  followers to Utah
• Grew quickly by 1850s by birth immigration from
  Europe
• Federal Government marched to Utah Territory when
  Young became governor. But no bloodshed
• Polygamy prevented Utah entrance to US till 1896

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Mountain Meadows massacre

• The was a mass slaughter of the Fancher-Baker
  emigrant wagon train at Mountain Meadows, Utah
  Territory, by a local Mormon militia September
  11, 1857.
• All of the party except for seventeen children
  under eight years old were killedabout 120 men,
  women, and children were killed
• The surviving children were distributed to local
  Mormon families, and many of the victims'
  possessions were auctioned off at the Latter-day
  Saint Cedar City tithing office.
• Only John D. Lee was tried in a court of law, and
  after two trials, he was convicted. On March 23,
  1877, a firing squad executed Lee at the massacre
  site.

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Free School for a Free People

• Free public education, triumphed in 1825 election
  of Jackson
• Horace Mann fought for better schools
• Mann was instrumental in the enactment of laws
  prohibiting the sale of alcoholic beverages,
  establishing state hospitals for the insane, and
  creating a state board of education, the first in
  the United States
• Mann resigned as secretary of the Massachusetts
  board of education in 1848, when he was elected
  to the U.S. House of Representatives to fill a
  vacancy caused by the death of John Quincy Adams
• Important people-Noah Webster(dictionary)
  (Ohioan William H. McGuffey-McGuffeys readers)

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Higher Goals for Higher Learning

• The Second Great Awakening led to building of
  small schools in South West
• First state supported University in N. Carolina
  by Jefferson (dedication freedom from religion)
• Between 1776 1800 50 new universities, incl
  Charleston, Bowden, Washington
• By 1800 there are 76 colleges
• Women thought to be bad if too educated
• Emma Willard -established Tory Female Seminary
  (1821) (Mount Holyoke Seminary (1837)
• Libraries, public lectures, magazines flourished.
  In 1825 125 magazines by 1860 over 600

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An Age of Reform

• Reformers go after tobacco, alcohol, profanity,
  transit of mail on Sabbath, womens rights,
  polygamy, medicines
• Optimistic for a perfect society (women imp. in
  reforms)
• Fought for no imprison for debt (poor lock in
  jail for less than 1)-gradually abolished
• Criminal codes soften reformatories added
• Mentally insane treated badly (ex. Dorothea Dix
  fought-classic petition of 1843)
• Agitation for peace(American Peace
  Society-1828)-William Ladd (had some impact till
  civil Crimean war)

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Demon Rum

• Drunkenness was widely spread
• American Temperance Society formed at Boston
  (1826)-Cold Water Army(children), sign pledges,
  pamphlets (anti-alcohol tract-10 nights in a
  Barroom and What I Saw There-Arthur)
• Temperance movement adopts two major lines of
  attack
• They tressed temperance(individual will to
  resist)
• Neal S. Dow Father of Prohibition Sponsored
  Maine Law of 1851-prohibited make, and sale of
  liquor

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Women in Revolt

• Women stayed home, w/o voting rights, (19th
  century)-better than Euro
• Many women avoided marriage all together
• Gender diff sharply w/ raising eco role
• Women weak physically emotionally but fine for
  teaching
• Men strong but crude if not guided by women

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Women in Revolt

• Womens movement led by Lucretia Mott, Susan B.
  Anthony, Elizabeth Candy Stanton, Elizabeth
  Blackwell (1st female medical graduate), Margaret
  Fuller, Grimke sisters (anti-slavery), Amelia
  bloomer (semi-short skirts)
• Womens Rights Convention (1848)-Seneca Falls-NY
• Declaration of Sentiments-spirit of declaration
  of independenceall Men Women are created
  equal
• Demanded ballot for women
• Launched modern womens rights movement

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Wilderness Utopias

• Robert Owen founded New Harmony (1825)? confusion
• Brook Farm-Massachusetts (1841)-20 intellectuals
  committed to Transcendentalism (lasted till 46)
• Oneida Community-practiced free love, birth
  control, eugenic selection of parents to produce
  superior offspring
• Shakers-communistic community (led by Mother Ann
  Lee)-1770 (cant marry so extinct)

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Utopian communities
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Dawn of Scientific Achievement

• Medicine early American interested in practical
  science than pure
• Nathaniel Bowditch- early American mathematician
  credited as the founder of modern maritime
  navigation his book The New American Practical
  Navigator, first published in 1802, is still
  carried onboard every commissioned U.S. Naval
  vessel.
• Matthew Maury - nicknamed Pathfinder of the Seas
  and Father of modern Oceanography and Naval
  Meteorology

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Dawn of Scientific Achievement

• Most influential US scientists
• -Benjamin Silliman(1779-1864) was an American
  chemist, one of the first American professors of
  science (at Yale University), and the first to
  distill petroleum.
• Louis Agassiz(1807-1873)-served at Harvard,
  insists on original research
• Asa Gray (1810-1888)Harvard-Columbus of botany
• John Audubon (1785-1851)painted birds
• Medicine in US primitive, life expectancy low
• Self-prescribed patent medicine common (often
  harmful)

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Artistic Achievement

• The US imitated Europe on styles
• 1820-50 was Greek revival
• Thomas Jefferson most ablest architect of
  generation (Montecello University of Virginia)
• Gilbert Stuart (1755-1828)-painted Washington
  competed w/ Eng artists

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Artistic Achievement

• Wilson Peale (1741-1827) painted 60 portraits of
  Washington

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Artistic Achievement

• John Trumbull (1756-1843)-captured rev. war in
  paint

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The Blossoming of a National Literature

• Reading plagiarized from Eng
• Literature revived after War of 1812
• Knickerbocker group in NY
• -Washington Irving(1783-1859)-1st US author intl
  recog- The Sketch Book)
• James Fenimore Cooper(1789-1851)-1st US
  novelist-Leatherstocking Tales (pop in Euro)
• William Cullen Bryant(1794-1878)-Thanatopsis(1st
  highly quality poems in US)

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Transcendentalism

• Dawn in 2nd quarter of 19th century w/
  transcendentalist movement (1830)
• Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)-popular because
  ideals reflected US
• Urged US writers throw off Euro tradition
• Most influential as practical philosopher
  (stressed self-government, reliance)
• Henry David Thoreau(1817-1862)-condemned slavery
  Walden Or life in the Woods
• Walt Whitman(1819-1892)-Leaves of Grass(poems)
  Poet Laureate of Demo

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Transcendentalist Thinkers
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Henry David Thoreau
Nature(1832)
Resistance to Civil Disobedience(1849)
Self-Reliance (1841)
Walden(1854)
The American Scholar (1837)
R3-1//4/5
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Glowing Literary Lights

• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow(1807-1882)-wrote poems
  popular in Europe Evangeline
• John Greenleaf Whittier(1807-1892)-poem cried vs.
  injustice, intolerance, inhumanity (social
  influence
• James Russell Lowell (1819-1891)-political
  satirist-Biglow Papers
• Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894)-The last Leaf
• Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888)-Little Women
• Emily Dickinson-theme of nature in poems
• Southern literary figure-William Gillmore Simms
  (1806-1870)-the cooper of the south(many
  books-life in frontier, south in rev war)

Louisa May Alcott lived in Orchard House when she
wrote Little Women. She wrote the book between
May and July 1868. She also wrote Little Men and
Jo's Boys and many other books.
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Literary Individualists and Dissenters

• Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)-The Raven
• invented modern detective novel
• fascinated by ghosts-reflect morbid sensibility
  (more prized by Euro)
• Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)-The Scarlet
  Letter (psychological effect on sin)
• -Herman Melville (1819-1891)-Moby Dick- good
  evil told in whale captain

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Portrayers of the Past

• George Bancroft(1800-1891)-found naval
  academy-published US history book
• Father of American History
• William H. Prescott-pub conquest of Mexico, Peru
• Francis Parkman-pub struggle bet. France Eng in
  colonial of N. America
• Historians mostly from New England had(anti-south
  bias antipathy w. slavery)