America History Nationalism and the Internal Slave Trade study guide

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America History Nationalism and the Internal Slave Trade study guide

Nationalism

Why did America have a destiny?

A. South & Slavery

1. King Cotton & Southern Expansion

a) The Cotton Gin & Expansion

cotton gin
- Catherine Greene helped support Eli Whitney
- revolutionized the Southern economy
- making it profitable to cultivate short-staple cotton
Southerners poured into Western Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi
- After the War of 1812
- driving out the Indians
poured into Louisiana and Texas
- generation later

b) The Internal Slave Trade

surge of expansion ignited a speculative frenzy
- growth of the cotton economy committed the South to slavery
- opinion about slavery elsewhere was changing
Congress banned the slave trade
- 1808
South was forced to rely on natural increase and the internal slave trade
- Slave and planter migration stimulated the slave trade
- many owners sold slaves and separate families to increase their profits

c) The Economics of Slavery

Slavery was profitable for slaveholders
- cotton brought international capital
- helped finance northern industry and trade
cotton and slavery tied up capital
- leaving the South lagging behind the North
- urban population, industrialization, canals, and railroads

2. African American Community

a) Cotton Culture

slave population grew
- 1790 – 1860
- 700,000 to four million
distinctive African American community developed
- most slaves lived in groups of ten or more
- able to form a sense of community
less, new African influences on community development
slaves’ first challenge was to survive
- Slaveholders claimed they treated their slaves more humanely than northern industrialists treated their workers
Slaves typically lived in one-room cabins
- dirt floors and a few furnishings
Slaves received the essentials for survival
- food and clothing
- neither was adequate
- frequently supplemented by the slaves’ own efforts
slaves learned how to avoid punishments and to flatter whites.
Some slaves worked as house servants
Some slaves were skilled workers
- filling in the positions left vacant due to the absence of immigrant labor.
75 percent were field hands
- under constant white supervision
- sunup to sundown
- performed the heavy field labor needed for getting out a cotton crop

b) Slave Families

Slaves created a community
- indigenous culture developed
Masters had to learn to live with the two key institutions of African American community life
- the family and the church
slave marriages
- not recognized by law
- frequently not respected by masters
separated children drew upon supportive networks of family and friends

c) African American Religion

Slaves were not permitted to practice African religions
- numerous survivals did work their way into the slaves’ folk culture
- first and second Great Awakenings introduced Christianity to many slaves
African American churches began emerging
- 1790s
- Whites hoped it would make the slaves obedient
- slaves found a liberating message
- strengthened their sense of community
- offered them spiritual freedom

3. Freedom & Resistance

a) Freedom and Resistance

Most slaves understood that they could not escape bondage
- About 1,000 per year escaped
- mostly from the upper South
More common was running away and hiding
- in the swamps or woods
- for about a week
- then returning

b) Slave Revolts

few slaves organized revolts
Gabriel Prosser and Denmark Vesey
- organized large-scale conspiracies
- attack whites in Richmond (Prosser) & Charleston (Vesey)
- plans were uncovered before being carried out
- did manage to leave whites with tremendous anxiety
Nat Turner
- led the most famous slave revolt
- Southampton County, Virginia
- 1831
- used religious imagery to lead slaves
- killed 55 whites
white southerners continually kept the idea of slave insurrection in mind

c) Free African Americans

nearly 250,000 free black people
- 1860
- mainly lived in the countryside
- working as tenants or farm laborers
free black communities flourished
- cities
- precarious position as their members lacked basic civil rights.

4. White Majority

Two-thirds of all southern whites lived in nonslaveholding families
Most yeomen were self-sufficient farmers
- strong sense of community
- reinforced by close kin connections and bartering
30 to 50 percent of southern whites were landless
- poor whites lived a marginal existence
- laborers and tenants at odds with slaves
- engaging in complex and sometimes clandestine relations with them
Some yeomen hoped to acquire slaves themselves,
- many were content with self-sufficient non-market agriculture.
Yeomen supported slavery
- believed that it brought them personal freedom

5. Planters

a) Slave Owners

Most slaveholders owned only a few slaves
- frequently drifted in and out of that status
- bad crops or high prices curtailed or increased their income.
Middle-class professionals
- easier time climbing the ladder of success
Andrew Jackson’s rise in Southern society
- used his legal and political position
Beginning as a landless prosecutor
- died a plantation owner with over 200 slaves
Most slaveholders
- inherited their wealth but sought to expand it
Thomas Chaplin
- married the daughter of a rich Charleston, South Carolina merchant
- moved to the family’s Sea Island plantation
- left management of his slaves to a black overseer
As slavery spread so did the slave-owning elite
- most wealthy planters lived fairly isolated lives
some planters cultivated an image of gracious living
- style of English aristocrats

b) Plantation Life

reality
- plantations were large enterprises
- required much attention to a variety of tasks
- aimed to be self-sufficient
southern paternalism
- each plantation was a family
- white master at its head
plantation mistress ran her own household
- could not challenge her husband’s authority
- frequently spent extended periods isolated on rural plantations
slaves to do much of the labor conventionally assigned to women
Slave women were vulnerable to sexual exploitation
- sometimes long-term relationships did develop
- Children of master-slave relationships seldom were publicly acknowledged and often remained in bondage

6. Defense of Slavery

Slavery lay at the base of southern society
- gave rise to various pro-slavery arguments
Southern whites found justifications
- Bible
- pointing to classical Greece and Rome
Constitution recognized slavery
- defending property rights
southerners barricaded themselves against outsiders
- 1830s
- Fearing slave revolts
- growing abolitionism
- cutting off of expansion
developed arguments that slavery was good for the slaves
growing cost of slaves
- percentage of slaveholders was declining
- class divisions widening

B. Growth of Democracy

1. New Democratic Politics

a) Expansion and Limits of Suffrage

economic changes were driving the North and South apart,
westward expansion and transportation advances
- served as unifying forces
only white, male, property owners could vote
- birth of the republic
- in most states
political power
- concentrated in the hands of a few aristocratic leaders
new western states
- suffrage expanded
most of the older states had dropped property qualifications
- 1820
90 percent of adult white males could vote
- 1840
women and African Americans
- barred from voting
nowhere else in the world was the right to vote so widely held

b) Election of 1824

marked an end to the political truce of the Era of Good Feelings.
Four candidates ran for the presidency
Andrew Jackson had the most popular votes
John Quincy Adams won
- result of what Jackson called a “corrupt bargain”

c) Organizing Popular Politics

New state organizations were built on the increased political participation
- many of which worked to get Andrew Jackson elected president.
New techniques of mass campaigning
- encouraged increases in participation
Party loyalty among politicians and the public was stressed

d) Election of 1828

Jackson triumphed
- supporters portrayed the contest as a struggle between democracy and aristocracy
- victory showed the strength of this new system
- based on a national party
- made up of a coalition of the North, South, and West

2. Jackson Presidency

a) A Popular Figure

Jackson symbolized
- possibilities of personal advancement that the frontier offered
inauguration brought out a mob of wellwishers
- unruly behavior
- led critics to fear that this was the beginning of the reign
- “King Mob”

b) The Spoil’s System and the New Politics

(1) Spoils System

right of the elected officer
- appoint anyone they wanted into higher ranking jobs
- already done on the state level
Favoring the “spoils system”
- discharged about 10 percent of the federal bureaucracy
- replaced them with his supporters

(2) Kitchen Cabinet

largely ignored his cabinet
- particularly those with ties to John Calhoun
Van Buren
- gained serious political capability
- chosen to the office of Secretary of State by Jackson
Jackson thought it was a good choice
- moderate
- from the Northeast
- look good for the president
part of the “Kitchen Cabinet”
- secret meeting group
- influenced the president with his policy
each were from the major parts of Jackson’s life
- some were not politicians
Van Buren made himself readily available to the president
- became his confidant
Van Buren became VP
- Jackson was re-elected in 1832
- thanks in part to the wife of John Calhoun and the Eaton Affair
- & nullification crisis

(3) Eaton Affair

Senator Eaton had fallen in love with a young woman
- Peggy O’Neale
She was married
- he was having an affair with her
her husband died suddenly
- senator asked her to marry him
- only two months after the death
- Mrs. Calhoun did not like the idea of a “lady of the night” being asked to dine with the president
Mrs. Calhoun was seated at a table with the young woman
- she stood up and left the room
Calhoun’s wife snubbed Peggy Eaton
- wife of Jackson’s Secretary of War
- furthering the split in the cabinet
Jackson was extremely disappointed
- he had his wife assaulted by those who thought that she was uncouth for her first husband
Calhoun had now ruined his chance to become the president
- replaced in the 1832 election by Van Buren as the VP

c) Nationalism vs. Sectionalism

Jackson’s Democrats created a national coalition
- transcended sectional identity
other politicians developed significant followings as spokespeople for their regions
- Daniel Webster for the East
- John C. Calhoun for the South
- Henry Clay for the West

d) Veto

Jackson strengthened the presidency by using the veto
- more frequently than had all of his predecessors combined
veto Maysville Road Bill
- 1830
- defeat for western rival Henry Clay

3. Changing the Course of Government

a) The Nullification Crisis

(1) “Tariff of Abominations”

Tariff of Abominations
- 1828
- strong reaction from South Carolina
Tariff of 1828 and the Tariff of 1832
- heavy load of the tax on the American goods
- act was not repealed
- south started to complain again
Southerners argued that the tariff was an unconstitutional
- effort to enrich the North at Southern expense
South Carolina nullified the 1833 tariff
- threatened to secede
- Jackson considered it treason
- obtained from Congress a bill to enable the federal government to collect the tariff at gunpoint if necessary

(2) Calhoun

began with John C. Calhoun
desire to end the rule of the federal government over the states
states should have the right to overrule a federal guideline
- states that made up the government
- states that created the government
Calhoun jumped to the forefront
- led the revolt
- displeased with Jackson for not letting him serve as the VP again
- felt that he cold enhance his chance to be elected the next president

(3) Compromise

Calhoun was eventually backed down from his position
- gave into the government
- created a time table whereby the tariff would be decreased over time
tariff would represent the equivalent amount of the tariff of 1816
- 1842
Henry Clay engineered a compromise tariff
- ended the threat of civil war
- wanted to help his old friend Calhoun
Calhoun had resigned as the VP
- served as the Senator from SC
- previous senator had been elected to the seat of governor

b) Indian Removal

(1) Removal Act

Jackson embraced the policy of Indian cession of their lands
- removal west of the Mississippi River
- The Five Civilized Tribes of the South were most affected
Cherokee had adopted white ways
- accepted white culture
Jackson pressed for removal
defied the Supreme Court
- ruled in favor of the Cherokee Indians
- efforts to prevent Georgia from pushing them out
- along the brutal “Trail of Tears”
The Removal Act of 1830
- strongly opposed by Northerners
- indicating increasing opposition
- allowed the government to create new treaties with the Indians
- ship them out of the area

(2) Trail of Tears

Cherokees were trying to avoid the repercussions
- Removal Act of 1830
small group of Cherokees signed a treaty
- none of the accepted leaders
- Jackson took it as real
- no one else did
ordered General Winfield Scott
- force the Indians by gunpoint
- move to the area now allocated for them in Oklahoma.

(3) Black Hawk War

1831-32
Black Hawk
- united the two tribes
- Sauk and the Fox tribes
led them across the border into Illinois
- helped the Indians find land and food
- they were lacking
whites thought that they were trying to invade
- lead to further invasion of other groups
militia was raised
- went after the tribes in a vicious fashion
- killed many of the people involved
Indians fled across the Mississippi River to Iowa,
- did not work either
- military came after them there as well
Indians were slaughtered
- Black Hawk was taken prisoner
- taken to the East Coast
- Jackson wanted to meet with the leader.
War was ended
- many of the Indian population had been killed
- removed from Illinois

(4) Seminoles

Florida when the Seminoles where asked to leave.
banded together
- under the control of Osceola
- leader of the tribes
wanted to create a land for the Seminoles
insurrection in 1835
- small one
- seen as the last of the major conflicts with the Seminoles
ended up winning a little
- made the war last until 1842
- government had spent over 1000 men and over 20 million dollars
Seminoles were able to maintain some areas in Florida as a result
Osceola was actually captured
- died in prison
fight continued
- Seminoles had the help of many runaway slaves
- used guerilla warfare tactics in the Everglades

c) The Bank War

(1) Second Bank of the US

Chartered in 1816
- quasi-private institution
encouraged the growth of strong and stable financial interests
- curbed less stable and irresponsible ones
- acting as a currency stabilizer
Eastern merchants
- found it a useful institution
western farmers and speculators
- like Jackson
- feared it represented a moneyed elite

(2) Hard Money

money used by banks needed to have a hard currency
- support the wealth of the money
- such as gold or silver
Jackson was not pleased with the Bank
- saw it as a gross over stepping of the federal government into the lives if the citizens
- did not like the government to be so large
- have so much power
government did not have the right to impose more currency among the people
- nor did the States have this right

(3) Soft Money

money could have value if the bank wanted it to have value
- did not have to have hard currency to support it
- potentially lead to devaluing of money and inflation
Nicholas Biddle
- leader of the Bank
- taken over in 1823

(4) Conflict

bank’s charter was due to run out in 1836
Biddle was concerned
- appealed to Henry Clay and Daniel Webster for help
- convinced Biddle to push the charter to be renewed in 1832
- election year
- thought that it would become a major part of the campaign for the presidency
election of 1832
- Jackson soundly defeated Henry Clay
- Democrats portrayed Clay as the defender of the Bank and privilege
bill was passed by Congress
- vetoed by the president
election came around
- Clay and his supporters were unable to gain the needed support
- bank was destroyed because of it

(5) The End

Jackson’s tactic for ending the reign of the Bank very quickly
- remove all government funds from the US Bank
- place them in the many smaller state banks
Jackson was advised against this by his Cabinet
- did it anyway to prove a point
Jackson claimed that he alone was the direct representative of the people
- could act regardless of Congressional opinion
felt that he could easily blame the Bank and Biddle if it did not work
- did just that when Biddle started to raise the interest rates of the bank due to the lack of money
Bank called in commercial loans
- response to the removal of federal funds
- causing a recession
Jackson did not budge
- would not support the Bank
Biddle eventually had to cave in to the populace
- offer out loans lower than the accepted rate
- he had to make some money
bank ended with a whimper
- no replacement for it for a long time

d) Election of 1836

Jackson’s opponents founded an opposition party
- the Whigs
new party lost to Martin Van Buren

e) The Panic of 1837

death of the Bank
- led to a period of feverish speculation
followed by the inevitable Panic of 1837
- depression that resulted led to great hardship
- gave the newly formed Whig Party its opportunity

4. Second American Party System

second American party system had evolved
- 1830s
based on mass national appeal
- reflected emerging class and cultural differences

a) Whigs

created because many felt that Jackson had gone past his limits
- become a tyrant
- referred to him as King Andrew I
predominantly the party that had gone against the king in England
- gave themselves this name
Tended to be from the upper class and aristocracy
favoring government intervention in economic and social affairs
benefited from commercial agriculture and industrialization
- nation needed to focus on industry
- build to be a world power
Wary of western expansion
- might mean a lesser amount of power in the government
pushed hard with the evangelical church members
- both trying to clean up society
- from the ills of the lower classes.
could not unify behind one common leader
constantly divided among three major politicians
- Webster, Clay and Calhoun
- known as the “Great Triumverate”

b) Democrats

came from the Jeffersonian Democratic-Republicans
- first major party to hold convention to elect President
- 1832
opposed the rapid social and economic changes
- led to commercial agriculture and factory work
identified themselves as the party of the “common man”
- small farmers and urban workers
- Felt that everyone had their rights
Tended to be poorer than the Whigs
strong following in the immigrants
- able to see the ills of the large companies
- taking advantage of them on a regular basis
Limited the power of the federal government
Pushed strongly for movement into the West

c) Election of 1840

Whigs candidate
- William Henry Harrison
- Portrayed as humble man happy to live in a log cabin
- won a sweeping electoral victory
- 80 percent voter turnout

d) Tyler Presidency

Harrison died a month after his inauguration
- Vice-President John Tyler assumed office
former Democrat
- Tyler had broken with Jackson for personal reasons
vetoed a series of bills
- calling for a new Bank of the United States
- tariffs
- internal improvements

C. Industry & the North

1. Transportation Revolution

a) Rural Life

yeomen existence of farm families in the Mid-Atlantic states
sold dairy products, wool, and livestock
- nearby
raised crops for family use and commercial sale
participated in a local network of barter and mutual obligation
- relative absence of cash
- goods and services originating in the home were bartered for other goods and services
traditional labor system put the entire family to work

b) Urban Life

learned their trades through the European apprenticeship system
- Young men worked as artisans
- until they had perfected their skills
- become journeymen & master craftsmen
women
- did skilled work
- no apprenticeship system existed for them
- managers of the household
- informal assistants
Work for the urban craftsman was a family affair
- organized along patriarchal lines
- father was head of the family and boss of the enterprise.
- father owned all family property
- considered its representative in the larger society
Preindustrial society
- fixed the place of people in the social order

2. Market Revolution

a) The Accumulation of Capital

Rapid improvements
- transportation, commercialization, and industrialization
- caused the market revolution
Merchants comprised the business community of the northern seaboard
- accumulated great wealth
conflicts 1807—1815
- disrupted United States trade with Europe
- merchants invested in local enterprises
- supplemented by banks and the government
- southern cotton produced by slaves that bankrolled industrialization

b) The Putting-Out System

merchants “put out” raw goods in homes
- early 19th century
- journeymen cut the leather
- wives and daughters bound the upper parts together, and so on
merchants built central workshops
- brought workers
- demand grew
- provided greater control over the workforce
- flexibility to respond to changing economic conditions
more workers became part of the putting out system
- wages for piecework replaced bartering
- families bought mass produced goods
- rather than making them at home

c) British Technology

industrial revolution began in Britain
- textile industry
- created deplorable conditions

d) Slater’s Mill

Samuel Slater
- slipped out of England
- plans for a cotton spinning factory
- followed British custom by hiring women and children.
- New England was soon dotted with factories along its rivers

e) The Lowell Mills

Francis C. Lowell
- studied British spinning machine
- added innovations
- helped invent a power loom
- built the first integrated cotton mill
- near Boston
- 1814
- drove smaller competitors out of business
- Lowell’s successors soon built an entire town
- house the new enterprise
Factories were set up
- elaborate divisions of labor
- established a hierarchy of value and pay
Mills were run with strict schedules
- fines and penalties for workers who did not meet them
Farm families had worked long hours
- shift to a precise timetable was a major change

f) Family Mills

most mills were “family mills”
Entire families would work in them
pool their wages to reach needed income levels

g) Other Factories

Communities developed antagonistic relationships with the mills
- resented the influx of transient workers
- frequently looked down upon them
Factories in other industries
- sprang up
- throughout rural America
- coexisting with the traditional artisan system

h) “The American System of Manufactures”

mass production & interchangeable parts
- Standardization spread into other areas
availability of these goods affected American thinking about democracy and equality
- Americans could have mass-produced copies
- indistinguishable from the originals

3. From Artisan to Worker

a) Changing Who Worked

putting out system destroyed the apprenticeship tradition in artisan production
- replacing them with child labor
older system of personal relationships between master and workers
- replaced with an impersonal wage system
masters could hire low-skill, low-wage women and children
- denying opportunities to male artisans
textile mills grew
- replaced women’s most reliable home occupation
- Women found work in mills or worked at other paid tasks at home.
- poorly paid
- women might work 15 to 18 hours a day

b) New Lifestyle

Workers did not readily adjust
- demands of the factory
- used to long hours
- not acclimated to the strict regimen
many were absent
- their interests as being different from their employers
Leisure spots emerged
- Taverns & spectator sports

c) The Cash Economy

led to the decline of the barter system
- altering the lives of people
- connected through local and informal ties
contact with employers
came through the pay envelope
- took advantage of the lack of ties
- move about in search of better jobs
- Owners cited this individualism when they opposed government mandated protections and denounced unions

4. New Middle Class

a) Wealth and Class

market revolution ended the natural fixed social order that previously existed
- now members were presumably able to climb the social ladder
upper class stayed about the same
number of “middling sorts” grew rapidly

b) Religion

market revolution changed their attitudes
- emphasized sobriety, steadiness,
- removed themselves from the boisterous sociability of the working class
Religion helped shape the new attitudes
- The Second Great Awakening
- moved from the frontier to the new market towns
- Preachers urged businessmen to convert
- accept the self-discipline and individualism that religion brought

c) New Middle-Class Family

Families changed under the weight of the market revolution
preindustrial family
- linked work and family matters
production moved out of the household
- family no longer combined work and personal life
Men were seen as steady, industrious, and responsible
wife could now concentrate on domestic tasks
- something other than “work.”
- manage their homes
- provide a safe haven for their husbands
Middle-class couples limited their family size
- birth control, abstinence, and abortion
- urged that sexual impulses be controlled
primarily responsible for training their children in self-discipline
- Children also prolonged their education and professional training.

d) Writing

Publishers found a lucrative market
- sentimentalism and nostalgia
- became more concerned with maintaining social codes
intellectual reassurance for middle-class morality
- writers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson
Transcendentalist writers
- emphasized individualism and communion with nature
- Henry David Thoreau and Margaret Fuller

D. Meeting the Challenges of the New Age

1. Immigration & the City

a) Growth of Cities

Preindustrial cities
- geographically small
- most people had to walk everywhere
lack of municipal services
- fostered voluntarism
market revolution increased the size of cities
- beginning in the seaports
- urban population rapidly grew between 1820 and 1860
cities sprang up at critical transportation points in the interior
- Chicago.
Immigration was a key part of urban growth
- soared beginning in 1830 immigration
- particularly in the North
some Americans opposed them
many others saw immigrants as a way to fill up the frontier or as a source of cheap, reliable labor

b) Irish, Germans & Chinese

Potato Famine of 1845–50
- great wave of Irish immigrants
- tended to settle in eastern seaboard cities
- faced discrimination
- poor working and living conditions
German immigrants
- dislodged by the same market forces at work in America
- generally settled in farm communities in the Midwest
Gold Rush California
- drew Chinese prospectors
- faced hostile discrimination
- played a vital role in the building of the first transcontinental railroad
- developed Chinatowns

c) Class Structure in the Cities

gap between rich and poor
- grew rapidly
- economic class was reflected by residence
Poor people
- nearly 70 percent of the city
- lived in cheap rented housing
Middle-class residents
- 25-30 percent
- lived in more comfortable homes
very rich
- about 3 percent
- built mansions and large town houses
cities had no adequate sanitation systems
- early nineteenth century
- leading to disease epidemics
- introduction helped create residential segregation
- wealthy clustered in neighborhoods with these services
- middle-class moved to new suburban areas
- poor became packed in dirty and crime-ridden slums

d) Civic (Dis)Order

new urban popular culture emerged
- centered around the tavern, theaters and the penny press
- challenged middle class respectability
concerned that the cities would become centers of disorder
- Cities began to hire more city watchmen
- create police forces to keep order
- proved inadequate to prevent urban riots

e) Free African Americans

half of the nation’s free African Americans lived in the North
- mainly in cities
- residential segregation
- job discrimination
- segregated public schools
- limits on their civil rights
- formed community support networks, newspapers, and churches

2. Urban Politics

a) Union Movement

American cities had long been centers of organized artisans and skilled workers
- associations, parades and celebrations were accepted parts of the urban community
skilled craft workers were being undercut by industrialization
- 1830s
Workers’ associations
- increasingly class-conscious
- workers turned to their fellow laborers, not employers for support
urban worker protest against change
- focused on party politics
workers organized
- Trade unions came together
- formed citywide “General Trades Unions”
- local groups then organized the National Trades Union
trade union movement
- met with hostility
- most collapsed during the Panic of 1837

b) Politics

Both major parties tried to woo the votes of organized workers
- neither could provide well paid stable jobs
Big-city machines arose
- reflecting the class structure of the fast growing cities
machines cultivated feelings of community
- appealing directly for working-class votes
- through mass organizational activities
- creating organizations that met basic needs of the urban poor
tight organizational structure
- headed by bosses
- traded loyalty and votes for political jobs and services
- leading to charges of corruption

3. Social Reform Movements

a) Evangelicalism & Reform

Middle-class Americans responded to the dislocations of the market revolution
- promoting various reform campaigns
Evangelical religion drove the reform spirit forward
- recognized that traditional small-scale methods of handling the poor and criminals no longer worked
- need was for larger-scale institutions
doctrine of perfectionism
- combined with a basic belief in the goodness of people
Society was now to be converted
- targets of reform frequently resented the reformers
- mixed political and social activities
- tended to seek to use the power of the state to promote their ends

b) Education

Educational reformers
- changed the traditional ways of educating children
children were seen as sinners
- wills had to be broken
now seen as innocents
- needed gentle nurturing
led to tax-supported compulsory public schools
Women were seen as more nurturing
- encouraged to become teachers
- creating the first real career opportunity for women

c) Temperance & Morality

Temperance
- included consuming large quantities of alcohol
Prompted by the Panic of 1837
- working class joined the temperance crusade
Artisans formed their own temperance societies
- so did their wives
mid-1840s
- alcohol consumption had been cut in half
Reformers also attacked prostitution
- organizing charity for poor women
- tougher criminal penalties
- little success
asylum movement
- promoted humane treatment of the insane and criminals,
- prison often failed to meet their purposes

d) Utopianism and Mormonism

some people formed utopian communities
Religious utopians
- Millerites and Shakers
- saw an apocalyptic end of history
Shakers
- practiced celibacy
- fellowship of equality
John Humphrey Noyes’s Oneida Community
- practiced “complex marriage”
New Harmony
- various Fourier-inspired communities
- unsuccessfully attempted a kind of socialism
Mormonism
- most successful communitarian movement
- Followers of Joseph Smith
- built a model community
- isolated from non- Mormon neighbors
- practiced polygamy
- moved their experiment to Salt Lake City
- Migration west did not bring the desired isolation

4. Abolitionism

American Colonization Society
- ineffective
- resettled a small number of free African Americans in Africa
- founded Liberia
- capital is Monrovia after James Monroe
Free African Americans rejected colonization
- founding abolitionist societies
- demanded equal treatment
- end to slavery
- some encouraging slave rebellions
William Lloyd Garrison
- headed the best-known group of antislavery reformers
- denounced all compromise
- including political action and the Constitution
- called for immediate emancipation on moral grounds
American Anti-Slavery Society
- abolitionists drew on the style of religious revivalists
- tried to confront slaveholders and lead them to repentance
- mailed over a million pieces of propaganda
- led to a crackdown by southern states
- Several abolitionists were violently attacked and one was killed
Abolition began as a social movement
- soon became a national political issue
- inundated Congress with petitions calling for abolition in the District of Columbia
Congress imposed a “gag rule”
- tabling all such petitions
- leading many people to become concerned about the threat to free speech
Former president John Quincy Adams led the fight against the gag rule
- repealed in1844
Abolitionist unity splintered
- along racial and political lines
Frederick Douglass
- former slave
- broke with Garrison when he called for political action
Liberty Party
- White abolitionists (other than Garrisonians) founded

5. Women’s Rights Movement

Women were active members of all reform societies
- formed their own antislavery organizations
majority of women
- too occupied at home to participate in reform movements
Sarah and Angelina Grimké
- left their South Carolina home
- traveled north to denounce slavery
- first female public speakers in American history
Many people disapproved of this public role for women
culminated with the Seneca Falls women’s rights convention
- 1848
- beginnings of the women’s rights movement

Source : http://www.bradwynne.com/us-history/notes/us1_unit_iv_notes.doc

Web site link to visit: http://www.bradwynne.com

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