Antebellum Religion and Romanticism

1
Antebellum Religion and Romanticism

• a.k.a. The 2nd Great Awakening and the birth of
  American Literature

2
Social and Religious Life

• Second Great Awakening
• Protestant Evangelical Movement beginning in the
  1800s
• Women greatly involved
• The Scripture is the final authority
• Salvation can only be achieved through a personal
  belief in Jesus Christ
• Demonstrate true faith by performing good deeds
• New Faiths
• Revivals
• Gathering to revive peoples beliefs

• Mobile Society
• White Americans not tied to the land
• Possibly more mobility than any people in history
  of the world at this time
• Ability to improve ones position in life

3
New Denominations

• Methodists
• Grew to the largest Protestant church
• Personal Relationship with God
• Methodist preachers were more common, less
  educated
• Circuit riders traveling ministers
• Francis Asbury
• Peter Cartwright
• Frequent revivals
• Anyone can attain salvation

• Baptists
• Grew to the second largest Protestant
  denomination during the 2nd Great Awakening
• Replaced Calvinist ideas w/ free will and adult
  baptisms
• Presbyterians
• Scotch-Irish
• Mix of Presbyterian and Congregationalists

4
The Burned-Over District

• Western New York was so overtook by religious
  revivals, it was compared to a wildfire
• Charles Grandison Finney

5
Denominations Reacting Against the 2nd Great
Awakening

• Unitarians
• God as a unity (not trinity)
• Rational, calm, and optimistic
• Gains strength in New England (former Puritans)
• Mormons
• Joseph Smith published The Book of Mormon in 1830
  (New York)
• Truer, simpler church
• The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
• Moved to Ohio and then Nauvoo, Illinois
• Where Smith is killed
• Brigham Young leads to Utah
• Originally part of Mexico

6
Millennialists

• William Miller called for the Advent of Christ in
  1843
• When 1843 passed, changed date to October 21,
  1844
• Seventh Day Adventist and other churches come out
  of this group

7
African American Religion

• Spirituals
• Spirituals folk hymns
• African-Americans used as a double meaning, tying
  to their freedom from slavery
• African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME)
• Many African-Americans didnt feel welcome in
  white churches
• Richard Allen helps to form

8
Noah Webster

• Wanted to establish a national language
• Promoted education
• Created the first dictionary of American English
• The American Spelling Book

9
Romanticism and American Arts

• Rise in the belief of intuitive knowledge (not
  the limits of Enlightened rational knowledge)
• Transcendentalism (see your worksheet!)
• Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Henry David Thoreau
• American Antebellum Literary leaders
• Nathanial Hawthorne (Scarlet Letter The House
  of Seven Gables)
• Herman Melville (Moby Dick)
• Walt Whitman (Leaves of Grass)
• Emily Dickinson (Success is counted sweetest)
• Edgar Allen Poe (The Raven and The Tell-Tale
  Heart)

10
Emily Dickinson

• Success is counted sweetest
• By those who ne'er succeed.
• To comprehend a nectar
• Requires sorest need.
• Not one of all the purple host
• Who took the flag today
• Can tell the definition,
• So clear, of victory
• As he, defeated, dying,
• On whose forbidden ear
• The distant strains of triumph
• Break agonized and clear!

11
(No Transcript)