Antebellum Revivalism, Reading, and Reform (1830-1840)

• The Second Great Awakening: "Spiritual Reform From Within"
  • Religous Reforms brought about social reforms that caused people to redefinine the ideal of equality
    • Temperance
    • Asylum and Penal Reform
    • Abolitionism
    • Women's Rights- Seneca Falls
    • Education- Horace Mann
  • Background on Religion
    • most people still attended a church, but was a social function not because they were devout, so by 1800, intense reaction to religious liberalism
      • Deism- "Divine Clockmakers Theory." Deism explained the origin of humans, but not much else.
      • Unitarianism- much more liberal (no Trinity, Jesus not God, No predestination, no original sin)
    • began on southern frontier, all the way into the cities of the Northeast and was spread by "camp meetings" especially Methodists and Baptists. estimated 25,000 people, hellfire gospel, frenzied reactions
    • this was even bigger than the First Great Awakening
    • when lots of churches started popping up, there were splits and sects of different beliefs and interpretations of the Bible. lots of people converted
      • Wealthier conservative denomination in the east
      • Methodists and Baptists created from fervor in poorer, less educated South and West. The rising power and political influence of Methodists and Baptists
        • stressed personal conversion, democratic control of church affiars
    • rising evangelicals, which were very excited religious people- influenced other ares of reform such as prison reform, temperance, women's movement and abolitionism.
    • church membership skyrocketed, stimulated humanitarian reforms, missionary work
    • Burned-Over District was a particularly zealous area in New York where lots of churches cropped up and where the revival was strongest
  • Different Religions
    • The Mormons: Joseph Smith and the Jesus Christ Church of Latter-Day Saints
      • first church in Palmyra, New York, which was in the Burned-Over District
      • The Book of Mormons was translated from the Golden Scribe by Joseph Smith
      • believed in plural wives, or polygamy.
      • they worked as a community, like a utopian society
      • anti-slavery, which a lot of people didn't like
      • Smith would say that the Mormon church was the one true church of God, which angered the other churches
      • the Governor of Missouri ordered an executive order to exterminate the Mormons, which was called the War for Missouri?
      • After moving to Far West, the Mormons eventually settled down in Nauvoo on the Mississippi, where they took their lives very seriously.
      • Nauvoo was where polygamy became really popular
      • After Smith died in a mob after he destroyed a printing press, Brigham Young emerged as a leader and led the Mormons on the Second Mormon Trek to Utah.
      • Brigham Young started to make orders from Utah, and at one point Buchanan actually sent troops out there to stop him
    • The Shakers: The United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing
      • founder was "Mother" Anne Lee
      • was a split of the Quakers
      • dancing was important to their religion
      • completely celibate
      • very clean bedrooms, like damn
      • famous for their architecture
    • The African Methodist Episcopal Church: founded by Richard Allen
    • Millerite, founded by William Miller
      • predicted the time that Jesus would return, but he was wrong
      • became known as the Great Disappointment
      • Significances
        • Nearness of Jesus' Comming
        • Jehova's Witness created
        • important later to Baha'i faith
    • Transcendentalism (1825-1850)
      • german philosophers and eastern religion
      • truth is very important in a relationship with the universe
      • a very personal thing, YOU need to find your inner light and that is the way to god
      • involves nature
      • individualism and getting in contact with yourself
      • Things they wanted to do
        • freedom to slaves
        • well-being to the poor
        • education to the ignorant
      • Famous Transcendentalist Intellectuals/ Writers
        • Ralph Waldo Emerson- considered the founder or leader of the Transcendentalists
          • Self Reliance
          • Nature
          • The American Scholar
        • Henry David Thoreau
          • Walden
          • Civil Disobedience
• Cultural Nationalism- Literature
  • Noah Webster created the first American Dictionary.
  • Education: "The Virtuous Citizen" An American form of English