History: Chapter 8

Chapter 8: Reform in America

In the early 1800s, America experienced its second Great Awakening- religious revival. Religion again became popular in America and the modicum was through powerful preachers. The mindset of this era was that people thought they were doomed to purgatory and they had to creep their way out.

Transcendentalism is a philosophical and literary movement, which was the brain child of Ralph Waldo Emerson. He was a writer and he believed that you can bring change through your thoughts and ideas. He discussed the ideas of truth that can be learned through nature. He said one should look inside himself and remove himself from the vicissitudes of society. Many transcendentalists moved out of the hub of life and into forests. One example of this was the writer Thoreau. He moved into a hut in the forest and didn’t come out for two years. He wrote “On Walden Pond” while he was alone.

Transcendentalism awoke the need for change. One of the areas of change was creating utopian societies, which were formed in order to find perfection. They wanted to build a community where everyone would live peacefully and in harmony, but none of them were successful.

Specific changes that took place:
1. Education- in early America, schools weren’t established and villages arranged education privately amongst themselves. In the 1830s was the start of state funded education. Slowly, more states began to take the responsibility for education, but It took a while for it to become an accepted thing. Horace Mann was the superintendent of schools in Massachusetts and he spent more money than ever before on education. He also made up curriculums and teacher training sessions- he made education real. Soon many states copied.
2. Prisoners and mental institutions- prisoners and people in mental institutions were horribly treated. Dorothy Dix went to prisons and institutions and saw the horrid treatment the inhabitants were receiving. She campaigned heavily for improvements in these institutions and was successful. (People still do this today.)
3. Slavery and abolition movement- abolitionists were people who wanted to abolish slavery. For years, African Americans that had been freed from slavery had campaigned for the abolition of slavery. Now, in the early 1800s, many preachers advocated for the end of slavery. Abolitionists:
a. William Lloyd Garrison. He was also the editor of an anti- slavery newspaper, “The Liberator”.
b. David Walker- was a freed slave who told African Americans to fight for their independence.
c. Fredrik Douglas- was a black slave who gained his freedom by escaping to the north. He befriended Garrison and worked for him for many years. Douglas was an exceptional speaker. Eventually, he began to publish his own newspaper called “The North Star”.
As the debate over slavery was growing, so was slavery itself. From 1810 to 1830, the slave population doubled in America. The whole institution of slavery now changed. It used to be mostly male workers who weren’t paid. By the 1830s, there were males, females and children who were American born working from dusk to dawn, some even longer. There were also slaves who worked in the cities, in the mills and mines.
In 1831, a Virginia slave named Nat Turner led a violent slave rebellion. He hit five southern plantations and killed all the white men in their beds. By the time he got to the fifth plantation, he was caught and executed.
The Nat Turner Rebellion sparked a new debate- some southerners were scared and felt maybe slavery should be abolished. In Virginia, they even tried to pass a law abolishing slavery, but it didn’t pass. The other side felt that the laws over the slaves had to be tightened so the slaves would be heavily controlled. There were some southerners who defended slavery, saying that it’s a wonderful thing- uncivilized people are now becoming Christian, and being taken care of for life.
In Congress the debates continued. The south was afraid that if the debates lasted long enough, slavery might be put to an end, so they passed the Gag Rule in 1836- debates can be limited. In 1845, the Gag Rule was lifted.

Woman and reforms:

Woman in America were treated as inferior beings and second class citizens. They didn’t have the right to own property or have custody over their children. Men had the right to beat their wives. Woman was bound by the cult of domesticity- the idea that woman belong at home.

There were woman who worked to improve life for woman:
1. Sisters Angelina and Sara Grimke- were also abolitionists. Along with other woman, they worked in the Temperance movement- to get men to stop drinking. Why? Because when men drink, the beat their wives. Many women joined. Factory owners also joined because drunk workers don’t perform well.
2. Emma Willard (New York) and Mary Lyon (Massachusetts) opened up girls high schools. Lyon’s school was called Holyoke. They faced much opposition.
3. Katherine Beecher was another woman who bought change. She researched woman’s health issues because woman used to be very sickly. She came up with the interesting finding that it was because:
a. They needed to get out and exercise more.
b. Their mode of dress was terrible, directly leading to illness.
4. Amanda Bloomer printed a pattern for a loose fitting pair of pants in the newspaper so woman should have more comfortable clothing. Bloomers gave woman the ability to move around more freely
5. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott wanted to bring woman rights, so they campaigned heavily. In 1848, they met at the Seneca Falls convention with other woman. Stanton and Mott spoke and explained the problems at hand. At the meeting, they read the Declaration of Sentiments, which was modeled after the Declaration of Independence. It stated that all men and woman are created equally and listed all their problems. This convention was considered to be the start of the woman’s rights movement.
6. Sojourner Truth- she was a black who fought for the abolition of slavery and woman’s rights.

The changing work place:

Now, America was moving into factories. Goods were no longer produced by artisans; they were now made in factories.

Many people were excited about this. In Lowell, Massachusetts, the mill girls (hired girls because they could be paid less) were excited to leave the field and go work in factories, bringing home money. The factories were social and interactive. Slowly, over time, work in the mills changed. The day was extended without an increase in pay. The factory owners demanded greater output- the workload was tripled, and the amount of workers was only doubled.

The mill girls went on strike. Most of the strikes were unsuccessful, but they didn’t give up. It was an extreme uphill battle. The strikes were unsuccessful mostly because of strikebreakers- people who broke the strikes. Strikebreakers were mostly immigrants, and many were Irish. Why were many Irish strikebreakers? Because the Irish were poor and were willing to work for less. There was a lot of prejudice against the Irish because:
1. They were the strikebreakers.
2. They were Roman Catholic.
Nevertheless, people still went on strike.

One of the first labor unions formed was the National Traitors Union in 1834. In the 1830s and 40s, the courts sided with the factory owners, besides for the one exception of Commonwealth vs. Hunt.