Top Banner
The Pursuit of Perfection The attempt to reach “perfection” individually and as a society during the antebellum era
16

The Pursuit of Perfection The attempt to reach “perfection” individually and as a society during the antebellum era.

Dec 29, 2015

Download

Documents

Welcome message from author
This document is posted to help you gain knowledge. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think about it! Share it to your friends and learn new things together.
Transcript
Page 1: The Pursuit of Perfection The attempt to reach “perfection” individually and as a society during the antebellum era.

The Pursuit of Perfection

The attempt to reach “perfection” individually and as a society during

the antebellum era

Page 2: The Pursuit of Perfection The attempt to reach “perfection” individually and as a society during the antebellum era.

I. The Second Great Awakening

Page 3: The Pursuit of Perfection The attempt to reach “perfection” individually and as a society during the antebellum era.

A. Causes and Theology

• Possible origins of this second major religious revival

• “Millennialism”

• Free moral agency or “Free will”

• This is an Arminian revival, not a Calvinistic one like the first Great Awakening

• “Perfectionism”

• Competing Religious Belief Systems

Page 4: The Pursuit of Perfection The attempt to reach “perfection” individually and as a society during the antebellum era.

B. The Frontier Phase

• Location: Kentucky frontier

• Camp Meeting setting• Bizarre physical

behavior• Denominations

affected• No impact on societal

reform

Page 5: The Pursuit of Perfection The attempt to reach “perfection” individually and as a society during the antebellum era.

C. The Northern Phase

• “Burned-over” District

• Less emotional than the frontier

• Spawns Reform Societies

• Began at Yale College

• Ministry of Lyman Beecher

• Ministry of Charles Finney

Page 6: The Pursuit of Perfection The attempt to reach “perfection” individually and as a society during the antebellum era.

II. New Voluntary Associations Produced

• Attack on societal evil—religious roots

• Attempt to baptize the market revolution

• The range of voluntary reform societies

• The success of the American Temperance Society

• Reform societies used religious techniques to advance their causes

Page 7: The Pursuit of Perfection The attempt to reach “perfection” individually and as a society during the antebellum era.

III. Changes in the American Family

Page 8: The Pursuit of Perfection The attempt to reach “perfection” individually and as a society during the antebellum era.

A. Marriage and Gender Issues

• The triumph of marriage for love

• More affectionate relationships between husbands and wives

• The “cult of true womanhood”• Increasing division of the work

places

-- “doctrine of the two spheres”• An era of deep female

friendships

Page 9: The Pursuit of Perfection The attempt to reach “perfection” individually and as a society during the antebellum era.

B. Parenting and Childhood

• The cosmic importance of parenting

• Childhood seen as a distinct stage of life

• More intimacy between parents and children—especially children and mothers

• Smaller families were the norm

• 25% drop in family size between 1800 and 1850

Page 10: The Pursuit of Perfection The attempt to reach “perfection” individually and as a society during the antebellum era.

IV. Institutional Reform

Page 11: The Pursuit of Perfection The attempt to reach “perfection” individually and as a society during the antebellum era.

A. Free Public Schools

• Free public schools increased dramatically between 1820-1850

• The role of moral indoctrination

• The appeal of education to lower classes

• Opponents of free public schools

• Key leaders in this public education movement

Page 12: The Pursuit of Perfection The attempt to reach “perfection” individually and as a society during the antebellum era.

B. Special Institutions for Social Misfits

• “Perfecting” impulse

• Colonial treatment of these “special need” individuals

• John Locke’s Tabula Rasa model

• Special Antebellum Institutions emerged

• Growing problems and important reformers

Page 13: The Pursuit of Perfection The attempt to reach “perfection” individually and as a society during the antebellum era.

V. The Emergence of Abolitionism

• Unachieved “perfection” leads to division within reform societies

• Early approaches to ending slavery--American Colonization Society (1817)

• William Lloyd Garrison--American Anti-Slavery Society (1833)--The Liberator

Page 14: The Pursuit of Perfection The attempt to reach “perfection” individually and as a society during the antebellum era.

V. Abolitionism (cont.)

• Theodore Weld and the Grimke Sisters

• The geography of abolitionism

• Internal problems for the American Anti-Slavery Society

• Open split in the Society by 1840

• The creation of the Liberty Party (1840)

Page 15: The Pursuit of Perfection The attempt to reach “perfection” individually and as a society during the antebellum era.

VI. Early American Feminist Movement

• Grows out of abolitionism

• Important Early Leaders in the Feminist Movement

• The Seneca Falls Convention (1848)

• Popular signs of protest

Page 16: The Pursuit of Perfection The attempt to reach “perfection” individually and as a society during the antebellum era.

VII. Radical Experiments in Perfection

• Utopian Socialism

--Robert Owen

• Transcendentalism

--Brook Farm (1841)

• The “water cure” and the diet of Sylvester Graham

• Phrenology

• Popularity of Séances and “spirit-rapping”