Reform Movements: A New American Culture Chapter 15.

Reform Movements: A New American Culture

Chapter 15

Why Reform?Social Reform – an organized attempt to improve what is unjust or imperfect in society

Two Roots

PoliticalReligious

• Colonial Era and New Republic –

• limited people could vote

• 1800s –

• Jacksonian Era politics was becoming more democratic

• more people could take part in the government

• others still said that we were not democratic enough

• Declaration of Independence

• a true democracy would not allow slavery or discrimination

• Colonial Era – 1700s

• predestination – God decided in advance which people would attain salvation after death

• people worried that they could do nothing to be saved

• 1800s

•Second Great Awakening

• taught that individuals could choose to save their souls by their own actions

• inspired new efforts to improve society

Prisons

Before

-Men, women and children were locked together

-Crowded

-Cruel punishments

-If there was little food then you starved

-Mentally ill were treated as criminals

-Debtors thrown in jail and they could not pay off their debt

Dorothea Dix

After

-Cells limited to one or two inmates

-Cruel punishments were banned

-Those convicted of minor crimes got shorter sentences

-Put the mentally ill in hospitals and stopped treating them as criminals

-Stopped treating debtors as criminals

Education

In the early 1800s Massachusetts was the only state that required free public schools.

Founded by Puritans who believed that you had to read the Bible

In 1814 New York passed a law requiring local governments to set up tax-supported school districts

Horace Mann

Problems

-Few schools

-All children in one room

-Poorly trained teachers and ill paid Solutions

-Built new schools in the North – public elementary schools

-Opened new colleges to train teachers

-Extended the school year

-Increased teacher pay

Most of these took place in the North. The South was much slower to reform education.

Temperance Movement

A campaign against alcohol abuse

-Some wanted to encourage less drinking

-Some wanted to ban alcohol

Mostly women because they saw the abuse of alcohol first hand (wife beating, child abuse, broken homes)

Temperance – moderation or self-restraint in action

Antislavery medallion

Abolitionists: person who wanted to end slavery completely

Abolitionist Movement

When the US Constitution was written in 1787 a compromise was made dealing with the slave trade. Congress was not allowed to outlaw the slave trade for 20 years.

Article I Section 9

“The migration or importation of such persons as any of the states now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight, …”

In the 1800s slavery gradually came to an end in the North.

A law was passed by Congress and signed by Thomas Jefferson outlawing the slave trade effective on January 1, 1808.

The law did not outlaw slavery or the buying and selling of slaves already in North America.

However, this law did little to stop the buying and selling of slaves in the South.

American Colonization Society

Early efforts against slavery- Quakers: since colonial times, Quakers had taught that it was a sin for

one human being to own another. Because all people were equal in the sight of God

- Second Great Awakening – ministers like Charles Grandison Finney called on Christians to join a crusade to stamp out slavery

Established in 1816 by Robert Finley

Proposed to set up an independent colony in Africa for freed slaves.

It was thought that free blacks could not escape from discrimination in the United States and it would be better for them to live in Africa.

In 1822, President Monroe helped the society found the nation of Liberia in western Africa.

About 13,000 free blacks were transported to Liberia.

Views

Favor:

-Southerners – feared free African Americans encouraged revolts

-Northerners – feared free African Americans would compete for white’s jobs

-African Americans – some believed that they would never have equal rights in the United States.

Against:

-Abolitionists – saw this as racist and a way to promote slavery by removing all free African Americans

-African Americans – many viewed the United States as their homeland and wanted to stay

Atlantic Ocean

Indian Ocean

Mediterranean Sea

Red Sea

Frederick Douglass

I would unite with anybody to do right

and with nobody to do wrong.

• Born into slavery in Maryland

• Learned to read even though it was against the law. He was taught by his master’s wife and white children from the neighborhood.

• He tried to escape twice but was unsuccessful. On his third attempt in September 1838 he escaped. He boarded a train dressed as a sailor and used identification papers provided by a free black seaman. He eventually reached New York. He was officially freed when abolitionist sympathizers paid the slaveholder who legally still owned him.

Frederick Douglass

While attending an Anti-Slavery Society meeting he was unexpectedly asked to speak. He spoke about his experiences as a slave. His speech was powerful brought people to tears. He was asked to lecture across the United States and Britain.

William Lloyd Garrison“I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice … I am in earnest – I will not equivocate – I will not excuse – I will not retreat a

single inch – AND I WILL BE HEARD!”

• He thought that slavery was an evil that needed to be ended immediately.

• Founder of the American Anti-Slavery Society

• Editor of the antislavery newspaper The Liberator

• The newspaper was ran from 1831 to 1866

•The first issue had a letter that was addressed: “To the Public”

The Grimke Sisters

• Angelina and Sarah

• daughters of a South Carolina slaveholder but they hated slavery and moved to Philadelphia where they became Quakers and worked for abolition.

•They traveled throughout the North, lecturing about their first-hand experiences with slavery on their family’s plantation.

• Because they were the first women to speak publicly in social reform movements they faced abuse and ridicule

The Underground Railroad

The Underground Railroad

A network of black and white abolitionists who secretly helped slaves escape to freedom in the North, Canada, Mexico, or the Caribbean.

It is estimated that the South lost 100,000 slaves between 1810 and 1850

The system started towards the end of the 18th century and grew over the years. In 1831 it was dubbed “The Underground Railroad,” after the then emerging steam railroads.

- homes and businesses where fugitives would rest and eat were called “stations”

- the stations were run by “stationmasters”

- those who contributed money or goods were “stockholders”

- “conductors” were responsible for moving fugitives from one station to the next

Phrases Used

• “The wind blows from the south today”= warning of slave bounty hunters nearby

• “A friend with friends” = A password used to signal arrival of fugitives with underground railroad conductor

• “The friend of a friend sent me” = a password used by fugitives traveling alone to indicate they were sent by the underground railroad network

• Load of Potatoes, Parcel, or Bundles of Wood = fugitives to be expected

The Underground Railroad

Underground Railroad homes

The Underground Railroad

Harriet Tubman

Born into slavery in Maryland.

When she was young a slave owner threw a heavy metal weight that hit her in the head. This caused her to suffer from seizures and have visions which she attributed to premonitions from God.

In 1849 she escaped to Philadelphia but soon returned to help her family escape too.

She made many trips back into the South to help other slaves escape to freedom.

She was given the nickname “Moses”.

Plantation owners in the South were outraged and offered up to $40,000 as a reward for her capture.

The Abolitionist Movement leads to the

Women’s Rights Movement

During the abolitionist movement many women discovered that the men of the movement who were opposed to slavery were also opposed to women playing active roles or taking speaking parts in the abolitionist movement.

This led Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott to hold the first Women’s Rights Convention.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton Lucretia Mott

Held in Seneca Falls, New York on July 19 – 20, 1848.

Around 300 men and women attended the convention.

They wanted to draw society’s attention to the situation of women.

- married women’s wages and property belonged to her husband

- women were paid less for the same work

- women were not allowed to speak in public

- women could not vote

At the convention they drafted the Declaration of Sentiments.

It was modeled after the Declaration of Independence.

It called for 12 resolutions including: * repeal of laws that enforced unequal

treatment of women* The recognition of women as the

equals of men* the right for women to speak in

churches* The granting of the right to vote

(almost doesn’t pass)

The Seneca Falls Convention marked the start of an organized campaign for equal rights, or the women’s rights movement.

Schools for women

- Women knew that education was the key to equality

- Girls who went to school learned dancing and drawing.

It was thought that there was no need to educate women because they were expected to care for their families.

- Slowly high schools for girls were set up and women were accepted into colleges.

In the 1900s the Women’s Suffrage Movement gained momentum.

Susan B. Anthony led the fight for women’s suffrage.

19th Amendment gave women the right to vote in 1920.

Susan B. Anthony