The%20Second%20Great%20Awakening%20-%201790

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The Second Great Awakening - 1790

• Leyang Bai, Yuhui Lee, Sunny Lu, Belle Hsu

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Origins

• Began in late 1700s early 1800s
• Initially in Kentucky
• Causes
• Americans lack in church attendance
• ?People believed that God did not care for his
  followers attendance, he only valued the way
  they lived their lives
• People focused on work and earning money
• Reaction to Secularism
• Took two forms
• Social activism
• New Denominations

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Religious denominations

• Hundreds converted their religions in weeks and
  churches gained thousands of new converts
• Evangelicaling of the west
• Conviction that Gods good news of salvation
  through Christ should be offered to everyone and
  that Christians should lead others to salvation
• Charles Grandison Finney
• Former attorney of law who turned to preaching,
  inspired hundreds of converts at each of his
  evangelical revivals
• Camp Meetings church pastors preached their
  religion to large groups in the frontier for days
  due to the absence of established churches
• A majority being female converts, as well as
  large numbers of African Americans

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Religious dENominations (continued)

• Major Evangelical revival locations
• New Yorks Burned Over District
• Burned over after no people left to convert (no
  fuel to burn)
• Kentucky

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Religious dENominations (Continued)

• Methodists
• Circuit Riders Common people that preached
  religion in the frontier
• Baptists
• Ordinary citizens or farmers form congregations
  and become ordained as ministers or priests
• Formation of new denominations boomed as
  colonists were not satisfied by premade religions
• Church of Later Day Saints Mormonism
• Founded by Joseph Smith, author of the Book of
  Mormon in April 6, 1830
• Believes in Gods plan of salvation as well as
  existence of prophets and follows unique rituals
  and practices, including the practice of having
  more than one wife
• Migrated West due to religious persecution from
  Protestants and Catholics
• Unitarianism
• Thrived in America in the 1800s
• Disproved that God is a trinity
• New churches began to form that shared the belief

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Transcendentalism

• Belief in the listening of nature and the human
  conscience to learn about the universe instead of
  religious doctrines
• Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Leading Transcendentalist
• Gave sermons to motivate others to follow his
  beliefs
• Henry David Thoreau
• Transcendentalist believing in the following
  conscience instead of devotion to the law
• Inspired the idea of Civil Disobedience

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Impacts

• Utopian Society
• Communities are created featuring sharing of
  land, family, and possessions.
• Members created idealistic utopias to inspire the
  virtue of others
• Generally unsuccessful
• Banning of alcohol and prostitution
• Increased church membership
• New religion sects
• Spawned large reform movements
• Significant decrease in crime
• Focus on lower class
• Unification in the Frontier
• Increase in abolitionists
• Aggravated the slavery debate between the North
  and the South

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POLITICAL CARTOON

• Audience swoon while Methodist minister gives his
  sermon at a camp meeting
• Watercolor by J. Maze Burbank, (Old Dartmouth
  Historical Society-New Bedford Whaling Museum)

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POLITICAL CARTOON

• Based on principles of the Second Great
  Awakening people must lead moral and righteous
  lives
• Alcohol leads to violence and crime. Hence, they
  should be banned
• From the collection of American Antiquarian
  Society

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PRIMARY SOURCE

• Excerpt from Baxter "Moral and Religious" in the
  New Hampshire Sentinel 1831I have thought much
  upon the subject of duty, as respects weekly
  meetingsand more especially since I have read
  numerous accounts of what are called four days
  meetings. I wish to conform as much as possible
  to the opinions of good men around me, but have
  been somewhat perplexed to know what to do. The
  direction not to be conformed to this world, has
  led me to inquire whether frequent weekly
  meetings, and the setting apart FOUR DAYS in
  succession, were the commands of God, or the
  inventions of men. While ruminating upon the
  subject, as I was pitching off the last load of
  hay for the season, neighbor Meanwell called at
  the barn and told me Mr ---- was going to preach
  on Wednesday evening, that there would be a
  lecture on Friday afternoon, and that on Tuesday
  a four days meeting would commence, when all the
  neighboring ministers would be presentno doubt
  many would come in from other towns, and he hoped
  I would not fail to attend, with my family. I
  thanked him for his information, and entered into
  conversation on various subjects, until my load
  of hay was safely deposited, when we sat down on
  the sill, and talked over the subject.

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Sources

• http//www.uua.org/beliefs/history/6903.shtml
• http//www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1091.html
• http//www.let.rug.nl/usa/outlines/history-1994/th
  e-formation-of-a-national-government/the-second-gr
  eat-awakening.php
• http//www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-second-great-a
  wakening.htm
• http//www.teachushistory.org/second-great-awakeni
  ng-age-reform/resources/victim-ardent-spirits
• Textbook pg 266-272