RELIGIOUS REVIVALS: SECOND GREAT AWAKENING



Many of the religious reform movements were sparked by a spiritual awakening that swept across the nation. People in these movements started to highlight the necessity of individual responsibility in order to seek salvation. These religious outlooks contained a close connection to the same ideas of Jacksonian democracy that stressed the importance and power of the common person. One religious movement called the Second Great Awakening was a Christian movement to revive religious sentiments and faith through emotional preaching and intense Bible studies. This positively impacted Americans' lives by unifying them in their community. In fact, in 1800 only 1 in 15 Americans belonged to a church, but by 1850 1 in 6 was a member. Led mainly by Methodist, Baptist, and Presbyterian traveling preachers like Charles G. Finney, the revivals often lasted for days or weeks and included emotional responses from participants. The revivals reached out to both blacks and whites, and some churches developed biracial congregations, though church leadership was still in the hands of whites. Polygamy developed as a practice among Mormons, a religious sect that developed in the 1830s but was not accepted by mainstream religion. Those changed during the Second Great Awakening then set out to make right the wrongs they saw in society causing great changes in American society.

Also, another religious movement called transcendentalism emerged through a Unitarian named Ralph Waldo Emerson. Unitarians believed in the revival of faith and that reason is the path to perfection. Emerson and others developed transcendentalism, which emphasized that truth could be revealed intuitively through the observation of nature and relating it to one's own spiritual and emotional understanding. Transcendentalists like Henry David Thoreau practiced civil disobedience by refusing to pay taxes to protest slavery and the US Mexican War.

Free African Americans formed churches like the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) that typically became political, cultural, and social centers by supplying schools and other services denied free blacks. These religious movements improved Americans' lives through the unification of their communities. (The Americans Reconstruction to the 21st Century. Florida edition. McDougal Littell, 2005. Print.)

Abolition, the movement to free African Americans from slavery took hold by the 1820s. Quakers were the first organized opposition to slavery. They formed the Underground Railroad which was a secret path from the South to Canada that had safe houses, food, and help along the way for runaways.

This major reform movement somewhat improved life for African Americans by raising the awareness towards the opposition of slavery and giving them hope that they may one day be free citizens. There were over a hundred antislavery societies, however many of them wanted African Americans to be resettled in Africa such as the American Colonization Society, which encouraged black emigration.

Nevertheless, there were numerous abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass who insisted that African Americans remain in the United States. Another radical abolitionist by the name of William Lloyd Garrison founded his own newspaper called The Liberator, which demanded the immediate emancipation of slaves. He along with others like Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, endured harsh criticism by whites who opposed abolition.

Other outspoken abolitionists included Angelina and Sarah Grimke, two sisters from South Carolina, who saw first hand the horrors of slavery. They converted to Quakerism, moved north, and began speaking in public against slavery suffering criticism and physical attack as they did. Harriet Beecher Stowe published the best selling book “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” which changed many peoples’ mind about slavery.

In addition, slave owners despised abolition especially after the rebellion led by Nat Turner, a Virginia slave, which resulted in killing 60 whites on four plantations. This resistance along with others helped strengthen the movement to abolish slavery. (The Americans Reconstruction to the 21st Century. Florida edition. McDougal Littell, 2005. Print.)

The Women’s Movement actually began as part of the abolitionist and other reform movements, but as women began speaking out against the injustice of slavery and other societal wrongs, they themselves came under criticism and attack for speaking in public and moving out of the range of what was considered normal behavior for women in the 1800s.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott were abolitionists who experienced discrimination from male abolitionists and so they decided to hold the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848. Over three hundred women participated including Susan B. Anthony, the first woman to be arrested for trying to vote, and Sojourner Truth, a powerful speaking African American, and they created a resolution called the Declaration of Sentiments stating all their grievances, and it called for women to have the right to vote. Additionally, this document, the first ever written to support equality for women, called for women to be able to pursue careers, own property, conduct business, and retain custody of their children in the event of a divorce. This was a major step that increased women's roles in society and ultimately led to the improvement of American women's lives. A few men like Frederick Douglass supported the women in their cause.

Reform movements for and by women greatly improved American lives. Women participated actively in temperance and abolition movements by raising money, distributing literature, and collecting signatures for antislavery petitions to Congress. This work that women did improved their education. Soon educational institutes and schools emerged for women and they offered classes of sciences, math, history, geography, languages, art, music, and literature. This improvement in education also improved women's lives especially in health reform. Furthermore, women's rights movement improved the lives of women by enabling them to have more opportunities to act outside the house.

(The Americans Reconstruction to the 21st Century. Florida edition. McDougal Littell, 2005. Print.)

The American Temperance Society began officially in 1826 and within 12 years had more than 8,000 local groups and over a million and a half members across the nation. This movement was supported mostly by women because of their disapproval and disgust with drunkenness. Many women in the early and mid 1800s had been abandoned by their husbands who were alcoholics. The temperance movement sought to prohibit drinking and ban alcohol entirely from society.

Americans historically began to drink alcohol in excess right after the American Revolution. People worked hard and drank when working. In fact, even some workers were paid with drink instead of money. Alcohol drinking was important part of all kinds of social functions from marriages to military celebrations. Furthermore, people believed at the time that drinking alcohol – like beer and ale – was actually healthier than drinking water.

The Temperance Movement initially tried to get people to drink moderately, but by 1820, the movement had adopted the position to advocate for the total abstinence of all alcohol. Several states passed laws prohibiting the sale of alcohol as a result. Women like Carrie Nation were especially supportive of this movement as it championed the family. Having been deserted by her family, Ms. Nation would go to saloons with an axe and destroy the barrels of alcohol.

After the Second Great Awakening, ministers like Charles G. Finney preached about how drunkenness and drinking alcohol contributed to the breakups of families. He and others tried to instill the idea of individual responsibility, and not drinking was one way to do this. Additionally, the temperance movement affected Northern society more than Southern and urban more than rural because Northern workers had the freedom and income to purchase and drink alcohol. The southern workforce was based on slavery, and slaves did not have any freedom to purchase alcohol nor any leisure time to drink.

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“Education then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is the great equalizer of the conditions of men, the balance-wheel of the social machinery.”--- Horace Mann

Education in America hasn’t always been free nor has it been public. In fact, one of the only places where public education existed prior to the Second Great Awakening was in Massachusetts. The Puritans believed that literacy (the ability to read) was a religious duty, but even this public education was limited to only boys. Girls went to a few years of school to learn to read and act gracefully. Some states had a few one-room school houses, but public schools on a national level did not exist.

The Common School is the precursor to today's public school. In the late 1830s, the reformer Horace Mann of Massachusetts proposed a system of free, universal, and non-religious schooling. Each district would provide a school for all children, regardless of religion or social class. Previously, church groups or private schools had provided most education for children, for which students generally had to pay tuition. The new schools would be funded by taxes.

In addition to teaching basic reading and math skills, the new schools would, according to reformers, instill a common political and social philosophy of democracy. Mann and other reformers felt these values would strengthen American society. Children would gain needed knowledge while learning how to be productive citizens of a constitutional republic.

The creation of the “Common Schools” (Public Schools) greatly increased the need for public school teachers, opening up a new profession outside the home for unmarried women. Many single, educated women worked as teachers before getting married and returning to the home. And a few colleges like Oberlin College which had denied entry to women now allowed their entry to train them as teachers.

Should prisoners, those serving sentences in jail simply be punished for their crimes, or should they be given the chance to reform and change their lives? This was a huge question during the 1800s in the United States. Prior the 2nd Great Awakening, those serving jail time, served hard time. They were responsible for their own health, bedding, and food. In fact, time in jail was usually before sentencing, and sentencing including execution, fines, torture, and/or being banished from the area where you committed the crime. If you were sent to prison, you were sentenced to a particular type of labor – hard work – during the time you served, and prisons were horribly filthy and dangerous. Children went to the same prisons as adults. Systems like the Eastern State Penitentiary created huge fortresses requiring prisoners to wear hoods, walk in lockstep with their heads turned right, and be in solitary confinement for the duration of their sentence. Others like the Auburn system forced convicts to work cutting stones in the hot sun 10 hours a day, six days a week.

In the 1800s though, people started having a change of heart, and prison reform was one of many movements taking hold of the nation. Prisons were given opportunities to “rehabilitate” prisoners, but they were so overcrowded, guards used torture for control. Children also were then sent to separate juvenile facilities.

Dorothea Dix was a main advocate for reform to both the prison system and the treatment of the mentally insane. At that time, the mentally ill were also kept in prison in some areas of the nation. She volunteered to teach the Bible to women prisoners and was horrified at how they were treated. Eliza Farnham was another woman concerned with the treatment of those in prison. Appointed to inspect Sing Sing Prison, she removed the silence rule, added an educational program, and advocated such luxuries as decorations, recreational and leisure activities for prisoners. Her suggestions were unheeded, and Sing Sing remained one of the most dangerous prisons of the time.

People with disabilities in the 1800s were considered less than whole. Used in circuses and made fun of, disabled people were thought to be abnormal, mentally ill, and not able to provide to society in a positive way. Consequently, they were often institutionalized and separated from main-stream society, and many were sterilized so that they could not have children.

Dorothea Dix, influenced by seeing that the mentally ill prisoners were treated harsher than regular prisoners, sought ways to make life better and reform the treatment of the mentally ill. In doing so, she helped fund 32 mental hospitals, 15 schools for the “feeble-minded,” a school for the blind, and many other nursing type facilities. Prior to the Second Great Awakening, many people suffering from physical challenges such as being epileptic, blind or deaf, were often thought to be insane and locked up in prisons with criminals. She made it her life’s work to educate the American public about the poor conditions for both the mentally ill and prisoners.

People who suffered from mental diseases lived in inhumane conditions, sometimes chained to the walls with little or no clothing, and in cells with no heat during cold winters. They were treated worse than prisoners even though most had committed no crimes. “Treatments” for insanity included beatings, isolating them from everyone else, and just keeping them rather than actually providing any kind of care.

Dorothea Dix changed all of this. She traveled across the nation, in both the north and south, speaking to state legislatures and convincing them to take measures to protect the mentally ill. Because of her efforts, humane care for the mentally ill was established in this nation. She even convinced Congress in 1854 to put aside 12 million acres of land as a public endowment to be used for the benefit of the mentally ill, but President Franklin Pierce vetoed the legislation. Still, she was able to get a divided Congress in the decade just prior to the Civil War to agree to her bill.

Although the bulk of the movement to reform working conditions didn’t occur until the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the early industrialization of the United States as well as innovations in science and technology did lay the foundations of society to want changes in the way labor was treated.

The Lowell Textile Mills in Massachusetts hired young, single girls as workers, and although the jobs in the mill were the first for women, working conditions such as six day work weeks and 12 hour days did take their ware on the women. Additionally, women who were hurt on the job faced immediate dismissal if they could not return to work. Women who would not agree to company rules such as going to church on Sundays who argued with superiors, or who did anything that seemed unladylike could also be dismissed without warning. Once a worker was fired from one company, no other textile mill would hire her, and she was blacklisted for life. In 1836, the Lowell girls shut down the factory by organizing one of the very first strikes in the United States. They did this to protest the fact that their wages were being lowered and because the corporations which employed them would no longer pay 25 cents per week toward their room and board. This amounted to a loss of pay of $1.00 a week. The girls walked out of their mills altogether and went out to a public area and listened to speeches by early labor reformers. They sang protest songs, but the corporations did not change its minds and continued to lower the workers’ pay.

Another early strike was organized by Chinese workers on the Transcontinental Railroad. In 1867, at the end of the Civil War, Chinese workers left their posts demanding a $5.00 per month raise – from $35.00 to $40.00 per month. They also requested a reduction in working hours as they worked from dawn until dusk. Workers were also concerned about the amount of time they were required to spend in tunnels because of the danger. The Central Pacific Railroad refused to compromise and instead denied the delivery of food and rations to the Chinese camp. After a week, workers were told to report back to work or not be paid for the entire month. They were fined and returned to work.

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