Chapter 12: An Age of Reform (1820-1840) Flashcards
Chapter 12:
What were Utopian Communities in the Reformation?
Utopia; 16th century Thomas More novel → outline perfect society
decade before Civil War: 100 reform communities
- most arose religious conviction
- (or) secular desire couteract social & economic changes
Objective:
- Social harmony
- narrow wealth gap
Chapter 12:
What gender roles existed in the Utopian societies?
Tried to find substitutes for conventional gender roles & marriage
Some:
- prohibited sex
- (or) allowed polygamy
Chapter 12:
Who were “the shakers?”
Most successful religious communities
Peak: 1840s
- 5000+ members
Chapter 12:
What beliefs did the shakers have (3)?
[1] God → “dual” personality
male & female
- sexes spiritual equality
[2] “Virgin Purity”
- sexes lived seperate dormitories
Increased members:
not natural reproduction
- converst
- adoption
[3] Rejected private accumulation of wealth
successful economy
- among first to market fruit and vegetables, seeds, herbal medicines
- beautiful furniture
Chapter 12:
How was the founder of Oneida? (1848)
1848: founded by John Humphrey Noyes
upstate NY
- Vermont-born
- son congress man
Chapter 12:
What “complex marriages” existed in Oneida?
Community → notorious “complex Marriages”
- man propose sexual relations any women
- women right accept or reject
registered public record book
Noyes feared: “exclusive affection”
- destroyed social harmony
Chapter 12:
How did outsides compared to insiders of the Utopian communties?
outside view: “voluntary slavery”:
Insiders:
- selfless devotion
- spiritual oriented communities
Chapter 12:
What made the Utopian community “worldly orientated?”
beset internal division
shorter periods of time
Chapter 12:
Who was Robert Owen?
Most important secular communicant
- British factory owner
- Appalled degradating workers in early industrial revoltion
Ideology: Communitarianism
- establishing small communities based on common ownership*
- less competitive and less individualistic
Chapter 12:
Describe Robert Owen’s New Lanark community in Scotland:
- strict rules
- good housing
- free education
1815: 1,500 employees
Result: largest center cotton manufacturing in the world
Chapter 12:
Describe Robert Owen’s second community, New Harmon:
- India (previously owned Protestant religious leader
objective: new world morality
1. children remove early age from care parents
schools: subordinate individual ambition to common
2. Women’s rights- access to education
- right to divorce
wanted abandon “false notions” about sexes
Result:
- squashed everything: community’s constitution & distribution of property
- only lasted a few years
Chapter 12:
Describe the objectives of mainstream reformers in the 2nd Great Awakening:
Most Americans: Ownership of property → key economic independence
- few joined societies required giving it up
Therefore: reform movements tended focus liberating people:
- Externalities:
Slavery, war
- Internal “servitudes”
drinking, illiteracy, criminality
Define the reformist idea of perfectionism:
What resulted from the ideology? (3)
> Individuals and society capable indefinite improvement
Result:
older reform efforts became radical
[1] Temperance Movement
Temperance: moderation in consumption of alcohol
Transformed into crusade to eliminate drinking entirely
[2] Criticism war → pacifism
[3] Critics slavery → demanded immidate emancipation
Chapter 12:
When was the American Temporance Society founded and what was their effect in the 1830s and 1840s?
1826: founded
- sought redeem habitual drinker and occasional drinker
1830s: 100s Americans renounce liquor
1840s: reduction consumption of nation’s alcohol
Chapter 12:
How did moderate reformists impact middle-class society? (1830?)
Middle class → reformism badge respectability
- individual took control lives
- morally accountable
Chapter 12:
What did critics of reformism think? (especially regarding liquor)
Saw attack own freedom:
- Taverns: meetings for workingmen
- political discussion, recreation
Drinking → central festivities
Chapter 12:
How did Catholicism and reformism clash ideologically?
American Catholics:
- numbers grew → Irish & German immigation
- hostile to reform
View Freedom:
Sin inescapable burden
- perfectionist idea that evil eradicated → affront to genuine religion
- opposed Protestant attempts impose view morality on neighbors
- Protestants: Men free moral agent
- Catholics: less emphasis → importance on communities centered around church and family
Chapter 12:
How were reformers views of freedom challenged (tention between liberation and control)?
Reformers view freedom: liberating and controlling same time
Opponents:
- freedom meant opportunity compete economic gain and individual improvement
Proponents: goal enact “genuine” liberty
- Liberty → freeing from forms of “slavery” (drink, poverty, sin)
- self-fulfillment = self-discipline
needed self control
America: excess liberty
**“natural liberty** (posed John Winthrop)” opposed “Christian liberty”
Chapter 12:
What was the American Tract Society?
Eastern religious groups worry → West: immirgrants
- lacked self-control
- led lives of vice (drinking, lack Protestant devotion)
1825-1835: American Tract Society & American Bible Society
- flooded East
- copies pamphelts
- promoted religious vitrue
Chapter 12:
How did reform institutions change American institutions due to the idea of perfectionism (1830s-1840s)?
Previously in colonial America:
- Crimes: whipping, fines, banishment
- Poor → relief
- Orphans lived with neighbors
- Families took care mentally ill
1830s-1840s: Reform Institutions
- Jails
- Poorhouses
- Asylums
- Orphanages
Perfectionism: social ills can be eliminated
- Initial idea of institutions: people be released as productive, self-disiplined
Chapter 12:
What were “common schools?” How did it change American schools?
- tax-supported
- state school system open all
Early 19th century:
children educated in locally supported schools, private academies, charity schools, home
Many not access
Chapter 12:
How was Horace Mann and what was his contribution to education reform?
- Massachusetts lawyer & Whigs politician
- director state’s board education
- Leading educational reformer
> Universal public education restore equality in society
Chapter 12:
How did 1860s public education in the north and south compare?
North:
1860s: every northern state tax-supported school system
- first career opportunity for women (teachers)
South:
- not want to pay poor white children
- Widened gap north and South
Chapter 12:
What was the idea of “colonization” in the 1810s? How did Liberia play into it?
Before 1830: Abolitionists
- end bondage
- “colonization” freed slaves → ship back to Africa, Caribbean, or Central America
1816: American Colonization Society
- gradually abolish slavery
- deport to Africa
Result: Establish Liberia
west coast Africa
Chapter 12:
Who were the opponents and proponents of colonization?
Opponents: impractical
Proponents:
- Henry Clay, John Marshall, Andrew Jackson
why: racism and slavery deeply embeded society - never achieve equality
- America fundamentally white society
Chapter 12:
Why did African Americans (some) oppose migration to Liberia?
- motivated free blacks claim rights as Americans
1817: 3,000 blacks → (philadelphia) first national black convention
1. Blacks = Americans 2. entitled same freedom