12) Origins and Accomplishments of Antebellum Reform Movements

Question 1

What were the factors that contributed to making cotton South’s most important cash crop?

Answer 1

1. Invention of the cotton gin, which made it possible and profitable to harvest short-staple cotton
2. Rich new farm land in the Deep South was opened to cultivation of cotton; Slavery was moving southward and westward
3. Rise of textile manufacturing in England created enormous demand for cotton

Question 2

Slave Society

Answer 2

• Slaves maintained social networks among kindred and friends
• Dramatic increase in South’s slave labor was due to natural population increase of American-born slaves
• Slaves were generally allowed to marry
• Slave revolts were infrequent

Question 3

Cult of Domesticity/Republican Motherhood

Answer 3

• “Republican Motherhood” advanced the idea that women did have a vital role to play as wives and mothers
• The republican mother should be concerned with domestic, family, and religious affairs

Question 4

Seneca Falls Convention (1848)

Answer 4

• Organized and led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott
• “Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions” demanded greater rights for women
• Called for women’s suffrage, women’s right to retain property after marriage, greater divorce and custody rights, equal educational opportunities

Question 5

Dorethea Dix

Answer 5

• Worked to reform the treatment of people with mental and emotional disabilities
• Called attention to the deplorable treatments and conditions to which the mentally ill in MA were subjected to in a pamphlet called Memorial
• Her efforts resulted in a bill that expanded the state hospital
• Not involved in the women’s right’s movement

Question 6

Horace Mann

Answer 6

• Grew up a poor child
• Served in the MA House of Representatives
• Appointed Secretary of State Board of Education
• Mann became the outspoken proponent for educational reform
• Fought for better resources for schools and teachers
• Initially faced opposition to his ideas

Question 7

Frederick Douglass

Answer 7

• Most prominent Black abolitionist during the antebellum period

Question 8

Nat Turner’s Slave Revolt (1831)

Answer 8

• Black American slave who led the only effective sustained slave rebellion in U.S. history
• Spread terror throughout who South
• Action set off a new wave of oppressive legislation prohibiting the education, movement, and assembly of slaves
• Stiffened proslavery, antiabolitionist convictions