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
I. The Second Great Awakening
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
B. The Frontier Phase
• Location: Kentucky frontier
• Camp Meeting setting• Bizarre physical
behavior• Denominations
affected• No impact on societal
reform
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
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
III. Changes in the American Family
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
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
IV. Institutional Reform
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
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
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
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)
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
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”