Introduction

In the 1820s and 30s, reaction to the restless, speculative, commercial world of the Jacksonian Era led many Americans to seek millennial perfection through the reformation of American society. The current of reform was driven by two streams of thought: romanticism and revivalism. Both movements stimulated the quest for perfectionism. The romantic movement's emphasis on self-improvement of the individual, and thus of society, was in harmony with the spirit of revival. Evangelist Charles Grandison Finney preached an optimistic New Theology and used "new measures" to reach a wide audience. Experiences in moral reform trained a generation of women and men to change themselves and create a society in harmony with the millennial ideal. As the focus shifted from converting individuals to dramatically redefining American life, new political strategies were adopted. Reformers engaged in a wide range of activities such as temperance, the free schools and asylum movement, prison reform, women's rights, and -- though not the strongest in numbers, the movement that most shook the nation -- abolition. 

The Web activities explore four threads of the perfectionist and reform impulse: the Second Great Awakening, utopian communities, abolitionism, and women's rights. Research links pursue other key aspects of the national drive for renewal that characterized the era.

Web Activities

1. Revivalism was a distinguishing characteristic of the Second Great Awakening. Charles Grandison Finney's optimistic message repudiating traditional Calvinism in favor of universal salvation embraced "perfectionism" and the reformation of American society. Carefully examine the image The Way of Good and Evil, above. What institutions mark the way to millennial perfection? Which lead to "everlasting punishment"? How do the words and images portrayed reflect the values of the revivalists?

• The experience of conversion was essential to following "the way of good." Read excerpts from Finney's account of his conversion. How did the experience change his life? Next, skim Finney's Autobiography, Chapter 21: Revival in Rochester, 1830;  or read the first in his series of lectures on revivals, What a Revival of Religion Is (1834). The Rochester revival is a landmark in the development of the revival as an institution of the Jacksonian era. What innovation did Finney introduce in Rochester? What types of people were converted? What needs did Finney's revival message address? What rhetorical devices did he use? 
• For evangelicals public action became a requirement of faith.  Evangelical men and women created a powerful network of voluntary benevolent societies to Christianize the nation. Go to Religion and the New Republic and scroll down to "Benevolent Societies." What was the relationship between revivalism and establishment of these reform societies? What function did they serve? Read Donald Scott's essay Evangelicalism as a Social Movement. What was the "Evangelical Empire"? What were the social consequences of the religious mobilization of the Second Great Awakening?

2.  While the revivals of the Second Great Awakening propelled some evangelical Christians to reform society in the public area, others sought to reform the world by example. Follow these links to investigate some of the religious and secular communities of the reform era. As you visit each site note similarities and differences in the motivations of the founders and the varied responses to millenarian beliefs. What were the social issues these utopian experiments addressed?  Were the short-term results a response to immediate needs, or did they promote long-term changes in American society?

• To identify components of America's "evangelical empire," go to Religion and the New Republic. Begin with the section "The Emergence of the African Methodist Episcopal Church," and read to the end. 
• The Shakers, formally known as the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Coming, were the most long-lived religious community committed to perfectionism. For background go to The Shakers, then visit Hancock Shaker Village and take the virtual tour. Keep in mind the questions for this activity. 
• The Oneida Community by Randall Hillebrand provides an overview of the founding and structure of one of the era's most controversial Utopian communities. "Bible Communism" and "complex marriage" were Oneida practices considered unacceptable by most members of traditional society. Do you view the practices of this community as oppressive or liberating to women?
• Read Donald Scott's Mormonism and the American Mainstream.  As you read, consider the case Scott makes that Mormonism, rather than being cut off from the mainstream of American society, was "rooted in many of the broader ideas that characterized early nineteenth-century evangelicalism." 
• Not all utopian experiments were religion-based. Secular communities founded to practice new forms of cooperative social organization included New Harmony, Indiana, and George Ripley's transcendental community at Brook Farm.  Go to Robert Owen to read about the English mill owner and his industrial reforms at New Lanark. Follow-up with a look at Owen's unsuccessful efforts in America, Robert Owen and New Harmony. 

3.  Abolitionism was the most long-term humanitarian reform movement of the era. Why did it encounter the greatest hostility? Consider the strident abolitionist attack on northern racism (as well as southern slavery) and the abolitionists' ties to the women's rights movement as possible answers. What types of men and women joined the movement?  Look for clues at these links.

• Abolition, Anti-Slavery Movements, and the Rise of the Sectional Controversy explores the background, key figures, and methods of the movement. Be sure to magnify the images.  In the "Woman to Woman" section, for example, The Negro Woman's Appeal to Her White Sisters, you will see the complete poem.
• William Lloyd Garrison became the pivotal figure in the radicalization of the movement. Read his profile and historian David Blight's assessment, then read Garrison's inaugural editorial, "To the Public," in the Liberator, January 1, 1831. Where does Garrison say he has found greatest opposition to his message? Who is the paper's target audience? 
• Though abolitionists were a small minority of northern society, free African Americans were an important source of support. David Walker, a free black who settled in Boston, became a leading spokesman against slavery. In 1829 he published his Appeal.  Read excerpts. Why does Walker request his "brethren. . . to buy a copy of Mr. Jefferson's 'Notes on Virginia,' and put it in the hand of his son"? What was the southern response to Appeal?
• The leading black spokesperson for abolition was Frederick Douglass (profile from Africans in America). Like Walker, Douglass used the fourth of July to remind his audience of liberty's unfinished business. Read Douglass' speech "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?", paragraphs numbered 35-47. What does Douglass mean when he asks, "What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July?" (46). 
• Newspapers and speeches were vital abolitionist campaign tools. Go to Influence of Prominent Abolitionists to examine evidence of a variety of additional resources. 
• Not all abolitionists were northern men, a point writer Lydia Maria Childs made in her poem Lines: To those Men and Women Who Were Avowed Abolitionists. Scroll down to the lines "Boldly ye sent the signal forth! / Nor flashed the fire in vain; / For the South answering to the North, / Reflected it again." To which leading abolitionists of southern origins does Childs refer? Childs wrote for friend Maria Weston Chapman's The Liberty Bell. View A Gallery of Illustrations. What clues do you find here that link the abolitionist and women's rights movements?

4.  Although evangelical Christianity and the cult of domesticity shaped most women's lives in the nineteenth century, a few became ardent abolitionists. Intertwined with the abolitionist movement was the crusade for women's rights launched officially at the Seneca Falls convention in 1848. 

• To consider the complex ways the women's rights movement was related to abolition see The Woman's Rights Movement.  Follow the links to "Seneca Falls Declaration & Resolutions" (1848), Frederick Douglass's "Editorial "(1848), and "Abolitionism & the Woman's Suffrage Movement" (1881). 
• Sarah and Angelina Grimké are representative of women who helped define the relationship between the abolitionist crusade and women's rights. Go to the Appeal To The Christian Women of the South by Angelina E. Grimké delivered to the New York Anti-Slavery Society in 1836. Read pages 1 through 6. What specific audience of women does Grimké address? How does she refute the southern argument that "the Bible sanctions Slavery"? Scroll down and read pages 35-40, then read page 67. How does Grimké justify her appeal to this particular audience? Review southern reception of the address at Women Authors. Write a paragraph citing key pieces of evidence to support your findings.
• Men too played a role in the women's rights movement. Read "Why Did Some Men Support the Women's Rights Movement in the 1850s, and How Did Their Ideas Compare to those of Women in the Movement?" (available at your library)
• Finally, find evidence of "the diversity of the reform impulse" in the activities of the Beecher family. View the Matthew Brady photograph, then read their profiles at The Beecher Tradition: Lyman Beecher, Catherine Beecher, Henry Ward Beecher, Harriet Beecher, and Isabella Beecher . 

Additional Research Links

American Romanticism

• Paul Brians' Romanticism, at Washington State University, offers an overview of the European background and key themes of the movement.
• The Romanticism page of Thomas Hampson's PBS documentary "I Hear America Singing," examines these themes in an American perspective. The site has a good profile of Walt Whitman as a representative figure; others include Margaret Fuller, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and the Alcotts. See also the Timeline. 
• American Transcendentalism at Gonzaga University gives a brief introduction to the movement noting its roots as a reform movement in the Unitarian church. The site has internal links to primary sources on Ralph Waldo Emerson.
• Visit the Electronic Archive of Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson on Nature, which includes Emerson's important An Address, Delivered before the Senior Class in Divinity College Cambridge, 1838. For an analysis, read Ralph Waldo Emerson's Harvard Divinity Address by Arthur Paul Patterson. 
• The American Renaissance and Transcendentalism includes a chart of the most important period figures and their contributions, and Transcendentalism and Religion has key links to sermons and addresses of major religious leaders of the movement. 

The Age of Reform

• The Great Awakening and Revivalism in America from Thomas Hampson's PBS documentary will help you think about the movement's influence not only on America's religious music, but on her language. 
• For more on African American voices of the reform era see From Slavery to Freedom: The African-American Pamphlet Collection, 1824-1909 at the Library of Congress. The collection presents 397 pamphlets published from 1824 through 1909, by African-American authors and others who wrote about slavery. The pamphlets include personal accounts, public orations, organizational reports, legislative speeches, and other topics. The site has a "search" function. 
• African-American Mosaic: Abolition as a Social Movement complements the previous site with additional visual evidence of anti-slavery pamphlets, advertisements, and sheet music. 
• Religious Movements at the University of Virginia profiles religious movements and includes background information, demographics, a summary of beliefs, and a discussion of controversial issues. See Churches of Christ, Seventh-Day Adventists, The Oneida Community, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, The Shakers, African Methodist Episcopal (AME). 
• The Oneida Community Collection at Syracuse University Library is the largest group of Oneida Community historical materials in existence. Be sure to view the extensive Oneida Community Photographs. See the 1993 Library Associates Courier for a collection of scholarly papers on the community.
• Two PBS television documentaries focus on nineteenth century Mormon history: American Prophet: The Story of Joseph Smith, and The Trail of Hope: The Story of the Mormon Trail, which includes first-hand accounts of the pioneers who made the 1,300-mile journey to Utah. For more on Mormonism visit the Official Internet Site of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 
• In an urgent appeal for asylum reform, Dorothea Dix's address, Memorial to the Massachusetts Legislature (1843), describes conditions in an almshouse.

Women's Sphere

• Women and Social Movements in the United States,1830-1930 project at University of New York at Binghamton, offers a rich collection of primary documents related to women and social movements in the United States. The site is a resource for student Editorial Projects that emphasize historical research and writing as an interpretive process. Each project poses a question and provides a collection of primary documents that address the question.
• Women in America 1820-1842, is a collection of primary materials compiled from the accounts of eighteen travelers in America to form a varied picture of the lives of American women.
• A comprehensive annotated list of "Web Links" on the nineteenth century women's movement and related materials is in the Resources section of the PBS Documentary on the work of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, Not For Ourselves Alone. Other resources include "Articles & Essays," "Historic Documents," and a "Biography" section.
• Suffrage is an overview of the movement excerpted from The Reader's Companion to American History by Eric Foner and John A. Garraty. My History Is America's History, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities, provides a gateway to many related topics in American history.
• The Anthony Center for Women's Leadership at the University of Rochester is another resource for online materials on the suffrage history of the women's movement. See also the Suffrage Timeline, 1792 - 1920.

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Domesticity in Europe

• The ideal of domesticity is closely associated with the importance of the middle class in Victorian Britain. The magnitude of these middle class ideals in England became associated with the term Victorianism. 
• For the best source of additional information on Victorianism visit George P. Landow's The Victorian Web at Brown University.
• Women claimed a positive role for themselves as guardians of public and private morality. In England as in America evidence may be found in the abundance of prescriptive literature. Representative of this type of work, stressing women's familial and domestic duties, is The Women of England, Their Social Duties, and Domestic Habits by Sarah Stickney Ellis (1812-1872). How does Ellis' advice compare with Catherine Beecher's in A Treatise on Domestic Economy  (1841)?