Chapter 13 | Antebellum Idealism and Reform Impulses, 1820–1860 361

CHAPTER 13

Antebellum Idealism and Reform

Impulses, 1820–1860

Figure 13.1 The masthead of The Liberator, by Hammatt Billings in 1850, highlights the religious aspect of
antislavery crusades. The Liberator was an abolitionist newspaper published by William Lloyd Garrison, one of the
leaders of the abolitionist movement in the United States.

Chapter Outline
13.1 An Awakening of Religion and Individualism
13.2 Antebellum Communal Experiments
13.3 Reforms to Human Health
13.4 Addressing Slavery
13.5 Women’s Rights

Introduction
This masthead for the abolitionist newspaper The Liberator shows two Americas (Figure 13.1). On the left
is the southern version where slaves are being sold; on the right, free blacks enjoy the blessing of liberty.
Reflecting the role of evangelical Protestantism in reforms such as abolition, the image features Jesus as the
central figure. The caption reads, “I come to break the bonds of the oppressor,” and below the masthead,
“Our country is the World, our Countrymen are all Mankind.”
The reform efforts of the antebellum years, including abolitionism, aimed to perfect the national destiny
and redeem the souls of individual Americans. A great deal of optimism, fueled by evangelical
Protestantism revivalism, underwrote the moral crusades of the first half of the nineteenth century. Some
reformers targeted what they perceived as the shallow, materialistic, and democratic market culture of
the United States and advocated a stronger sense of individualism and self-reliance. Others dreamed of a
more equal society and established their own idealistic communities. Still others, who viewed slavery as
the most serious flaw in American life, labored to end the institution. Women’s rights, temperance, health
reforms, and a host of other efforts also came to the forefront during the heyday of reform in the 1830s and
1840s.
362 Chapter 13 | Antebellum Idealism and Reform Impulses, 1820–1860

13.1 An Awakening of Religion and Individualism

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Explain the connection between evangelical Protestantism and the Second Great
Awakening
• Describe the message of the transcendentalists

Protestantism shaped the views of the vast majority of Americans in the antebellum years. The influence
of religion only intensified during the decades before the Civil War, as religious camp meetings spread the
word that people could bring about their own salvation, a direct contradiction to the Calvinist doctrine of
predestination. Alongside this religious fervor, transcendentalists advocated a more direct knowledge of
the self and an emphasis on individualism. The writers and thinkers devoted to transcendentalism, as well
as the reactions against it, created a trove of writings, an outpouring that has been termed the American
Renaissance.

THE SECOND GREAT AWAKENING

The reform efforts of the antebellum era sprang from the Protestant revival fervor that found expression
in what historians refer to as the Second Great Awakening. (The First Great Awakening of evangelical
Protestantism had taken place in the 1730s and 1740s.) The Second Great Awakening emphasized an
emotional religious style in which sinners grappled with their unworthy nature before concluding that
they were born again, that is, turning away from their sinful past and devoting themselves to living a
righteous, Christ-centered life. This emphasis on personal salvation, with its rejection of predestination
(the Calvinist concept that God selected only a chosen few for salvation), was the religious embodiment of
the Jacksonian celebration of the individual. Itinerant ministers preached the message of the awakening to
hundreds of listeners at outdoors revival meetings (Figure 13.3).

Figure 13.2

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Chapter 13 | Antebellum Idealism and Reform Impulses, 1820–1860 363

Figure 13.3 This 1819 engraving by Jacques Gerard shows a Methodist camp meeting. Revivalist camp meetings
held by itinerant Protestant ministers became a feature of nineteenth-century American life.

The burst of religious enthusiasm that began in Kentucky and Tennessee in the 1790s and early 1800s
among Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians owed much to the uniqueness of the early decades of the
republic. These years saw swift population growth, broad western expansion, and the rise of participatory
democracy. These political and social changes made many people anxious, and the more egalitarian,
emotional, and individualistic religious practices of the Second Great Awakening provided relief and
comfort for Americans experiencing rapid change. The awakening soon spread to the East, where it had
a profound impact on Congregationalists and Presbyterians. The thousands swept up in the movement
believed in the possibility of creating a much better world. Many adopted millennialism, the fervent belief
that the Kingdom of God would be established on earth and that God would reign on earth for a thousand
years, characterized by harmony and Christian morality. Those drawn to the message of the Second Great
Awakening yearned for stability, decency, and goodness in the new and turbulent American republic.
The Second Great Awakening also brought significant changes to American culture. Church membership
doubled in the years between 1800 and 1835. Several new groups formed to promote and strengthen
the message of religious revival. The American Bible Society, founded in 1816, distributed Bibles in an
effort to ensure that every family had access to the sacred text, while the American Sunday School Union,
established in 1824, focused on the religious education of children and published religious materials
specifically for young readers. In 1825, the American Tract Society formed with the goal of disseminating
the Protestant revival message in a flurry of publications.
Missionaries and circuit riders (ministers without a fixed congregation) brought the message of the
awakening across the United States, including into the lives of slaves. The revival spurred many
slaveholders to begin encouraging their slaves to become Christians. Previously, many slaveholders feared
allowing their slaves to convert, due to a belief that Christians could not be enslaved and because
of the fear that slaves might use Christian principles to oppose their enslavement. However, by the
1800s, Americans established a legal foundation for the enslavement of Christians. Also, by this time,
slaveholders had come to believe that if slaves learned the “right” (that is, white) form of Christianity, then
slaves would be more obedient and hardworking. Allowing slaves access to Christianity also served to
ease the consciences of Christian slaveholders, who argued that slavery was divinely ordained, yet it was
a faith that also required slaveholders to bring slaves to the “truth.” Also important to this era was the
creation of African American forms of worship as well as African American churches such as the African
Methodist Episcopal Church, the first independent black Protestant church in the United States. Formed
in the 1790s by Richard Allen, the African Methodist Episcopal Church advanced the African American
effort to express their faith apart from white Methodists (Figure 13.4).
364 Chapter 13 | Antebellum Idealism and Reform Impulses, 1820–1860

Figure 13.4 Charles Grandison Finney (a) was one of the best-known ministers of the Second Great Awakening.
Richard Allen (b) created the first separate African American church, the African Methodist Episcopal Church, in the
1790s.

In the Northeast, Presbyterian minister Charles Grandison Finney rose to prominence as one of the most
important evangelicals in the movement (Figure 13.4). Born in 1792 in western New York, Finney studied
to be a lawyer until 1821, when he experienced a religious conversion and thereafter devoted himself to
revivals. He led revival meetings in New York and Pennsylvania, but his greatest success occurred after
he accepted a ministry in Rochester, New York, in 1830. At the time, Rochester was a boomtown because
the Erie Canal had brought a lively shipping business.
The new middle class—an outgrowth of the Industrial Revolution—embraced Finney’s message. It fit
perfectly with their understanding of themselves as people shaping their own destiny. Workers also
latched onto the message that they too could control their salvation, spiritually and perhaps financially as
well. Western New York gained a reputation as the “burned over district,” a reference to the intense flames
of religious fervor that swept the area during the Second Great Awakening.

TRANSCENDENTALISM
Beginning in the 1820s, a new intellectual movement known as transcendentalism began to grow in the
Northeast. In this context, to transcend means to go beyond the ordinary sensory world to grasp personal
insights and gain appreciation of a deeper reality, and transcendentalists believed that all people could
attain an understanding of the world that surpassed rational, sensory experience. Transcendentalists were
critical of mainstream American culture. They reacted against the age of mass democracy in Jacksonian
America—what Tocqueville called the “tyranny of majority”—by arguing for greater individualism
against conformity. European romanticism, a movement in literature and art that stressed emotion over
cold, calculating reason, also influenced transcendentalists in the United States, especially the
transcendentalists’ celebration of the uniqueness of individual feelings.
Ralph Waldo Emerson emerged as the leading figure of this movement (Figure 13.5). Born in Boston in
1803, Emerson came from a religious family. His father served as a Unitarian minister and, after graduating
from Harvard Divinity School in the 1820s, Emerson followed in his father’s footsteps. However, after his
wife died in 1831, he left the clergy. On a trip to Europe in 1832, he met leading figures of romanticism
who rejected the hyper-rationalism of the Enlightenment, emphasizing instead emotion and the sublime.

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Chapter 13 | Antebellum Idealism and Reform Impulses, 1820–1860 365

Figure 13.5 Ralph Waldo Emerson (a), shown here circa 1857, is considered the father of transcendentalism. This
letter (b) from Emerson to Walt Whitman, another brilliant writer of the transcendentalist movement, demonstrates the
closeness of a number of these writers.

When Emerson returned home the following year, he began giving lectures on his romanticism-influenced
ideas. In 1836, he published “Nature,” an essay arguing that humans can find their true spirituality
in nature, not in the everyday bustling working world of Jacksonian democracy and industrial
transformation. In 1841, Emerson published his essay “Self-Reliance,” which urged readers to think for
themselves and reject the mass conformity and mediocrity he believed had taken root in American life. In
this essay, he wrote, “Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist,” demanding that his readers be
true to themselves and not blindly follow a herd mentality. Emerson’s ideas dovetailed with those of the
French aristocrat, Alexis de Tocqueville, who wrote about the “tyranny of the majority” in his Democracy in
America. Tocqueville, like Emerson, expressed concern that a powerful majority could overpower the will
of individuals.

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text of “Self Reliance” by Ralph Waldo Emerson. How have Emerson’s ideas
influenced American society?

Emerson’s ideas struck a chord with a class of literate adults who also were dissatisfied with mainstream
American life and searching for greater spiritual meaning. Many writers were drawn to transcendentalism,
and they started to express its ideas through new stories, poems, essays, and articles. The ideas of
transcendentalism were able to permeate American thought and culture through a prolific print culture,
366 Chapter 13 | Antebellum Idealism and Reform Impulses, 1820–1860

which allowed magazines and journals to be widely disseminated.

Among those attracted to Emerson’s ideas was his friend Henry David Thoreau, whom he encouraged
to write about his own ideas. Thoreau placed a special emphasis on the role of nature as a gateway to
the transcendentalist goal of greater individualism. In 1848, Thoreau gave a lecture in which he argued
that individuals must stand up to governmental injustice, a topic he chose because of his disgust over
the Mexican-American War and slavery. In 1849, he published his lecture “Civil Disobedience” and urged
readers to refuse to support a government that was immoral. In 1854, he published Walden; Or, Life in the
Woods, a book about the two years he spent in a small cabin on Walden Pond near Concord, Massachusetts
(Figure 13.6). Thoreau had lived there as an experiment in living apart, but not too far apart, from his
conformist neighbors.

Figure 13.6 Henry David Thoreau (a) argued that men had the right to resist authority if they deemed it unjust. “All
men recognize the right of revolution; that is, the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when its
tyranny or its inefficiency are great and unendurable.” Thoreau’s Walden; or, Life in the Woods (b) articulated his
emphasis on the importance of nature as a gateway to greater individuality.

Margaret Fuller also came to prominence as a leading transcendentalist and advocate for women’s
equality. Fuller was a friend of Emerson and Thoreau, and other intellectuals of her day. Because she was
a woman, she could not attend Harvard, as it was a male-only institution for undergraduate students until
1973. However, she was later granted the use of the library there because of her towering intellect. In
1840, she became the editor of The Dial, a transcendentalist journal, and she later found employment as a
book reviewer for the New York Tribune newspaper. Tragically, in 1850, she died at the age of forty in a
shipwreck off Fire Island, New York.
Walt Whitman also added to the transcendentalist movement, most notably with his 1855 publication of
twelve poems, entitled Leaves of Grass, which celebrated the subjective experience of the individual. One of
the poems, “Song of Myself,” amplified the message of individualism, but by uniting the individual with
all other people through a transcendent bond.

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Chapter 13 | Antebellum Idealism and Reform Impulses, 1820–1860 367

AMERICANA
Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself”
Walt Whitman (Figure 13.7) was a poet associated with the transcendentalists. His 1855 poem, “Song
of Myself,” shocked many when it was first published, but it has been called one of the most influential
poems in American literature.

Figure 13.7 This steel engraving of Walt Whitman by Samuel Hollyer is from a lost daguerreotype by
Gabriel Harrison, taken in 1854.

I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,

And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death. . . .
And I say to mankind, Be not curious about God,
For I who am curious about each am not curious about God,
(No array of terms can say how much I am at peace about God and about death.)
I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least,
Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself. . . .
I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world. . . .
You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.
Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.
What images does Whitman use to describe himself and the world around him? What might have been
shocking about this poem in 1855? Why do you think it has endured?

Some critics took issue with transcendentalism’s emphasis on rampant individualism by pointing out the
368 Chapter 13 | Antebellum Idealism and Reform Impulses, 1820–1860

destructive consequences of compulsive human behavior. Herman Melville’s novel Moby Dick; or, The
Whale emphasized the perils of individual obsession by telling the tale of Captain Ahab’s single-minded
quest to kill a white whale, Moby Dick, which had destroyed Ahab’s original ship and caused him to
lose one of his legs. Edgar Allan Poe, a popular author, critic, and poet, decried “the so-called poetry of
the so-called transcendentalists.” These American writers who questioned transcendentalism illustrate the
underlying tension between individualism and conformity in American life.

13.2 Antebellum Communal Experiments

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Identify similarities and differences among utopian groups of the antebellum era
• Explain how religious utopian communities differed from nonreligious ones

Prior to 1815, in the years before the market and Industrial Revolution, most Americans lived on farms
where they produced much of the foods and goods they used. This largely pre-capitalist culture centered
on large family units whose members all lived in the same towns, counties, and parishes.
Economic forces unleashed after 1815, however, forever altered that world. More and more people now
bought their food and goods in the thriving market economy, a shift that opened the door to a new way
of life. These economic transformations generated various reactions; some people were nostalgic for what
they viewed as simpler, earlier times, whereas others were willing to try new ways of living and working.
In the early nineteenth century, experimental communities sprang up, created by men and women who
hoped not just to create a better way of life but to recast American civilization, so that greater equality
and harmony would prevail. Indeed, some of these reformers envisioned the creation of alternative ways
of living, where people could attain perfection in human relations. The exact number of these societies is
unknown because many of them were so short-lived, but the movement reached its apex in the 1840s.

RELIGIOUS UTOPIAN SOCIETIES

Most of those attracted to utopian communities had been profoundly influenced by evangelical
Protestantism, especially the Second Great Awakening. However, their experience of revivalism had left
them wanting to further reform society. The communities they formed and joined adhered to various
socialist ideas and were considered radical, because members wanted to create a new social order, not
reform the old.
German Protestant migrants formed several pietistic societies: communities that stressed transformative
individual religious experience or piety over religious rituals and formality. One of the earliest of these,
the Ephrata Cloister in Pennsylvania, was founded by a charismatic leader named Conrad Beissel in the
1730s. By the antebellum era, it was the oldest communal experiment in the United States. Its members
devoted themselves to spiritual contemplation and a disciplined work regime while they awaited the
millennium. They wore homespun rather than buying cloth or premade clothing, and encouraged celibacy.
Although the Ephrata Cloister remained small, it served as an early example of the type of community that
antebellum reformers hoped to create.
In 1805, a second German religious society, led by George Rapp, took root in Pennsylvania with several
hundred members called Rappites who encouraged celibacy and adhered to the socialist principle of
holding all goods in common (as opposed to allowing individual ownership). They not only built the
town of Harmony but also produced surplus goods to sell to the outside world. In 1815, the group sold
its Pennsylvanian holdings and moved to Indiana, establishing New Harmony on a twenty-thousand-acre
plot along the Wabash River. In 1825, members returned to Pennsylvania, and established themselves in
the town called Economy.

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Chapter 13 | Antebellum Idealism and Reform Impulses, 1820–1860 369

The Shakers provide another example of a community established with a religious mission. The Shakers
started in England as an outgrowth of the Quaker religion in the middle of the eighteenth century. Ann
Lee, a leader of the group in England, emigrated to New York in the 1770s, having experienced a profound
religious awakening that convinced her that she was “mother in Christ.” She taught that God was both
male and female; Jesus embodied the male side, while Mother Ann (as she came to be known by her
followers) represented the female side. To Shakers in both England and the United States, Mother Ann
represented the completion of divine revelation and the beginning of the millennium of heaven on earth.
In practice, men and women in Shaker communities were held as equals—a radical departure at the
time—and women often outnumbered men. Equality extended to the possession of material goods as
well; no one could hold private property. Shaker communities aimed for self-sufficiency, raising food and
making all that was necessary, including furniture that emphasized excellent workmanship as a substitute
for worldly pleasure.
The defining features of the Shakers were their spiritual mysticism and their prohibition of sexual
intercourse, which they held as an example of a lesser spiritual life and a source of conflict between
women and men. Rapturous Shaker dances, for which the group gained notoriety, allowed for emotional
release (Figure 13.8). The high point of the Shaker movement came in the 1830s, when about six thousand
members populated communities in New England, New York, Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky.

Figure 13.8 In this image of a Shaker dance from 1840, note the raised arms, indicating emotional expression.

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15ShakerMusic) of the Shakers, including the well-known song “Simple Gifts,” which
has become part of American culture.

Another religious utopian experiment, the Oneida Community, began with the teachings of John
Humphrey Noyes, a Vermonter who had graduated from Dartmouth, Andover Theological Seminary,
and Yale. The Second Great Awakening exerted a powerful effect on him, and he came to believe in
perfectionism, the idea that it is possible to be perfect and free of sin. Noyes claimed to have achieved this
370 Chapter 13 | Antebellum Idealism and Reform Impulses, 1820–1860

state of perfection in 1834.

Noyes applied his idea of perfection to relationships between men and women, earning notoriety for his
unorthodox views on marriage and sexuality. Beginning in his home town of Putney, Vermont, he began
to advocate what he called “complex marriage:” a form of communal marriage in which women and men
who had achieved perfection could engage in sexual intercourse without sin. Noyes also promoted “male
continence,” whereby men would not ejaculate, thereby freeing women from pregnancy and the difficulty
of determining paternity when they had many partners. Intercourse became fused with spiritual power
among Noyes and his followers.
The concept of complex marriage scandalized the townspeople in Putney, so Noyes and his followers
removed to Oneida, New York. Individuals who wanted to join the Oneida Community underwent a
tough screening process to weed out those who had not reached a state of perfection, which Noyes
believed promoted self-control, not out-of-control behavior. The goal was a balance between individuals
in a community of love and respect. The perfectionist community Noyes envisioned ultimately dissolved
in 1881, although the Oneida Community itself continues to this day (Figure 13.9).

Figure 13.9 The Oneida Community was a utopian experiment located in Oneida, New York, from 1848 to 1881.

The most successful religious utopian community to arise in the antebellum years was begun by Joseph
Smith. Smith came from a large Vermont family that had not prospered in the new market economy and
moved to the town of Palmyra, in the “burned over district” of western New York. In 1823, Smith claimed
to have to been visited by the angel Moroni, who told him the location of a trove of golden plates or
tablets. During the late 1820s, Smith translated the writing on the golden plates, and in 1830, he published
his finding as The Book of Mormon. That same year, he organized the Church of Christ, the progenitor of
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints popularly known as Mormons. He presented himself as a
prophet and aimed to recapture what he viewed as the purity of the primitive Christian church, purity that
had been lost over the centuries.
Smith emphasized the importance of families being led by fathers. His vision of a reinvigorated patriarchy
resonated with men and women who had not thrived during the market revolution, and his claims
attracted those who hoped for a better future. Smith’s new church placed great stress on work and
discipline. He aimed to create a New Jerusalem where the church exercised oversight of its members.
Smith’s claims of translating the golden plates antagonized his neighbors in New York. Difficulties with
anti-Mormons led him and his followers to move to Kirtland, Ohio, in 1831. By 1838, as the United States
experienced continued economic turbulence following the Panic of 1837, Smith and his followers were
facing financial collapse after a series of efforts in banking and money-making ended in disaster. They

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Chapter 13 | Antebellum Idealism and Reform Impulses, 1820–1860 371

moved to Missouri, but trouble soon developed there as well, as citizens reacted against the Mormons’
beliefs. Actual fighting broke out in 1838, and the ten thousand or so Mormons removed to Nauvoo,
Illinois, where they founded a new center of Mormonism.
By the 1840s, Nauvoo boasted a population of thirty thousand, making it the largest utopian community
in the United States. Thanks to some important conversions to Mormonism among powerful citizens in
Illinois, the Mormons had virtual autonomy in Nauvoo, which they used to create the largest armed force
in the state. Smith also received further revelations there, including one that allowed male church leaders
to practice polygamy. He also declared that all of North and South America would be the new Zion and
announced that he would run for president in the 1844 election.
Smith and the Mormons’ convictions and practices generated a great deal of opposition from neighbors in
surrounding towns. Smith was arrested for treason (for his role in the destruction of the printing press of
a newspaper that criticized Mormonism), and while he was in prison, an anti-Mormon mob stormed into
his cell and killed him. Brigham Young (Figure 13.10) then assumed leadership of the group, which he
led to a permanent home in what is now Salt Lake City, Utah.

Figure 13.10 Carl Christian Anton Christensen depicts The angel Moroni delivering the plates of the Book of
Mormon to Joseph Smith, circa 1886 (a). On the basis of these plates, Joseph Smith (b) founded the Church of
Latter-Day Saints. Following Smith’s death at the hands of a mob in Illinois, Brigham Young took control of the church
and led them west to the Salt Lake Valley, which at that time was still part of Mexico.

SECULAR UTOPIAN SOCIETIES

Not all utopian communities were prompted by the religious fervor of the Second Great Awakening;
some were outgrowths of the intellectual ideas of the time, such as romanticism with its emphasis on the
importance of individualism over conformity. One of these, Brook Farm, took shape in West Roxbury,
Massachusetts, in the 1840s. It was founded by George Ripley, a transcendentalist from Massachusetts. In
the summer of 1841, this utopian community gained support from Boston-area thinkers and writers, an
intellectual group that included many important transcendentalists. Brook Farm is best characterized as
a community of intensely individualistic personalities who combined manual labor, such as the growing
and harvesting food, with intellectual pursuits. They opened a school that specialized in the liberal arts
rather than rote memorization and published a weekly journal called The Harbinger, which was “Devoted
to Social and Political Progress” (Figure 13.11). Members of Brook Farm never totaled more than one
hundred, but it won renown largely because of the luminaries, such as Emerson and Thoreau, whose
names were attached to it. Nathaniel Hawthorne, a Massachusetts writer who took issue with some of
372 Chapter 13 | Antebellum Idealism and Reform Impulses, 1820–1860

the transcendentalists’ claims, was a founding member of Brook Farm, and he fictionalized some of his
experiences in his novel The Blithedale Romance. In 1846, a fire destroyed the main building of Brook Farm,
and already hampered by financial problems, the Brook Farm experiment came to an end in 1847.

Figure 13.11 Brook Farm printed The Harbinger (a) to share its ideals more widely. George Ripley (b), who founded
the farm, was burdened with a huge debt several years later when the community collapsed.

Robert Owen, a British industrialist, helped inspire those who dreamed of a more equitable world in the
face of the changes brought about by industrialization. Owen had risen to prominence before he turned
thirty by running cotton mills in New Lanark, Scotland; these were considered the most successful cotton
mills in Great Britain. Owen was very uneasy about the conditions of workers, and he devoted both his life
and his fortune to trying to create cooperative societies where workers would lead meaningful, fulfilled
lives. Unlike the founders of many utopian communities, he did not gain inspiration from religion; his
vision derived instead from his faith in human reason to make the world better.
When the Rappite community in Harmony, Indiana, decided to sell its holdings and relocate to
Pennsylvania, Owen seized the opportunity to put his ideas into action. In 1825, he bought the twenty-
thousand-acre parcel in Indiana and renamed it New Harmony (Figure 13.12). After only a few years,
however, a series of bad decisions by Owen and infighting over issues like the elimination of private
property led to the dissolution of the community. But Owen’s ideas of cooperation and support inspired
other “Owenite” communities in the United States, Canada, and Great Britain.

Figure 13.12 This 1838 engraving of New Harmony shows the ideal collective community that Robert Owen hoped
to build.

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Chapter 13 | Antebellum Idealism and Reform Impulses, 1820–1860 373

A French philosopher who advocated the creation of a new type of utopian community, Charles Fourier
also inspired American readers, notably Arthur Brisbane, who popularized Fourier’s ideas in the United
States. Fourier emphasized collective effort by groups of people or “associations.” Members of the
association would be housed in large buildings or “phalanxes,” a type of communal living arrangement.
Converts to Fourier’s ideas about a new science of living published and lectured vigorously. They believed
labor was a type of capital, and the more unpleasant the job, the higher the wages should be. Fourierists
in the United States created some twenty-eight communities between 1841 and 1858, but by the late 1850s,
the movement had run its course in the United States.

13.3 Reforms to Human Health

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Explain the different reforms aimed at improving the health of the human body
• Describe the various factions and concerns within the temperance movement

Antebellum reform efforts aimed at perfecting the spiritual and social worlds of individuals, and as an
outgrowth of those concerns, some reformers moved in the direction of ensuring the health of American
citizens. Many Americans viewed drunkenness as a major national problem, and the battle against alcohol
and the many problems associated with it led many to join the temperance movement. Other reformers
offered plans to increase physical well-being, instituting plans designed to restore vigor. Still others
celebrated new sciences that would unlock the mysteries of human behavior and, by doing so, advance
American civilization.

TEMPERANCE
According to many antebellum reformers, intemperance (drunkenness) stood as the most troubling
problem in the United States, one that eroded morality, Christianity, and played a starring role in
corrupting American democracy. Americans consumed huge quantities of liquor in the early 1800s,
including gin, whiskey, rum, and brandy. Indeed, scholars agree that the rate of consumption of these
drinks during the first three decades of the 1800s reached levels that have never been equaled in American
history.
A variety of reformers created organizations devoted to temperance, that is, moderation or self-restraint.
Each of these organizations had its own distinct orientation and target audience. The earliest ones were
formed in the 1810s in New England. The Massachusetts Society for the Suppression of Intemperance and
the Connecticut Society for the Reformation of Morals were both formed in 1813. Protestant ministers led
both organizations, which enjoyed support from New Englanders who clung to the ideals of the Federalist
Party and later the Whigs. These early temperance societies called on individuals to lead pious lives and
avoid sin, including the sin of overindulging in alcohol. They called not for the eradication of drinking but
for a more restrained and genteel style of imbibing.
374 Chapter 13 | Antebellum Idealism and Reform Impulses, 1820–1860

AMERICANA
The Drunkard’s Progress
This 1840 temperance illustration (Figure 13.13) charts the path of destruction for those who drink. The
step-by-step progression reads:
Step 1. A glass with a friend.
Step 2. A glass to keep the cold out.
Step 3. A glass too much.
Step 4. Drunk and riotous.
Step 5. The summit attained. Jolly companions. A confirmed drunkard.
Step 6. Poverty and disease.
Step 7. Forsaken by Friends.
Step 8. Desperation and crime.
Step 9. Death by suicide.

Figure 13.13 This 1846 image, The Drunkards Progress. From the First Glass to the Grave, by
Nathaniel Currier, shows the destruction that prohibitionists thought could result from drinking alcoholic
beverages.

Who do you think was the intended audience for this engraving? How do you think different audiences
(children, drinkers, nondrinkers) would react to the story it tells? Do you think it is an effective piece of
propaganda? Why or why not?

In the 1820s, temperance gained ground largely through the work of Presbyterian minister Lyman Beecher.
In 1825, Beecher delivered six sermons on temperance that were published the follow year as Six Sermons
on the Nature, Occasions, Signs, Evils, and Remedy of Intemperance. He urged total abstinence from hard liquor
and called for the formation of voluntary associations to bring forth a new day without spirits (whiskey,
rum, gin, brandy). Lyman’s work enjoyed a wide readership and support from leading Protestant
ministers as well as the emerging middle class; temperance fit well with the middle-class ethic of
encouraging hard work and a sober workforce.
In 1826, the American Temperance Society was formed, and by the early 1830s, thousands of similar
societies had sprouted across the country. Members originally pledged to shun only hard liquor. By
1836, however, leaders of the temperance movement, including Beecher, called for a more comprehensive
approach. Thereafter, most temperance societies advocated total abstinence; no longer would beer and
wine be tolerated. Such total abstinence from alcohol is known as teetotalism.
Teetotalism led to disagreement within the movement and a loss of momentum for reform after 1836.
However, temperance enjoyed a revival in the 1840s, as a new type of reformer took up the cause

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Chapter 13 | Antebellum Idealism and Reform Impulses, 1820–1860 375

against alcohol. The engine driving the new burst of enthusiastic temperance reform was the Washington
Temperance Society (named in deference to George Washington), which organized in 1840. The leaders
of the Washingtonians came not from the ranks of Protestant ministers but from the working class. They
aimed their efforts at confirmed alcoholics, unlike the early temperance advocates who mostly targeted the
middle class.
Washingtonians welcomed the participation of women and children, as they cast alcohol as the destroyer
of families, and those who joined the group took a public pledge of teetotalism. Americans flocked to the
Washingtonians; as many as 600,000 had taken the pledge by 1844. The huge surge in membership had
much to do with the style of this reform effort. The Washingtonians turned temperance into theater by
dramatizing the plight of those who fell into the habit of drunkenness. Perhaps the most famous fictional
drama put forward by the temperance movement was Ten Nights in a Bar-Room (1853), a novel that became
the basis for popular theatrical productions. The Washingtonians also sponsored picnics and parades that
drew whole families into the movement. The group’s popularity quickly waned in the late 1840s and early
1850s, when questions arose about the effectiveness of merely taking a pledge. Many who had done so
soon relapsed into alcoholism.
Still, by that time, temperance had risen to a major political issue. Reformers lobbied for laws limiting
or prohibiting alcohol, and states began to pass the first temperance laws. The earliest, an 1838 law in
Massachusetts, prohibited the sale of liquor in quantities less than fifteen gallons, a move designed to
make it difficult for ordinary workmen of modest means to buy spirits. The law was repealed in 1840, but
Massachusetts towns then took the initiative by passing local laws banning alcohol. In 1845, close to one
hundred towns in the state went “dry.”
An 1839 Mississippi law, similar to Massachusetts’ original law, outlawed the sale of less than a gallon
of liquor. Mississippi’s law illustrates the national popularity of temperance; regional differences
notwithstanding, citizens in northern and southern states agreed on the issue of alcohol. Nonetheless,
northern states pushed hardest for outlawing alcohol. Maine enacted the first statewide prohibition law in
1851. New England, New York, and states in the Midwest passed local laws in the 1850s, prohibiting the
sale and manufacture of intoxicating beverages.

REFORMS FOR THE BODY AND THE MIND

Beyond temperance, other reformers looked to ways to maintain and improve health in a rapidly changing
world. Without professional medical organizations or standards, health reform went in many different
directions; although the American Medical Association was formed in 1847, it did not have much power to
oversee medical practices. Too often, quack doctors prescribed regimens and medicines that did far more
harm that good.
Sylvester Graham stands out as a leading light among the health reformers in the antebellum years. A
Presbyterian minister, Graham began his career as a reformer, lecturing against the evils of strong drink.
He combined an interest in temperance with vegetarianism and sexuality into what he called a “Science of
Human Life,” calling for a regimented diet of more vegetables, fruits, and grain, and no alcohol, meat, or
spices.
Graham advocated baths and cleanliness in general to preserve health; hydropathy, or water cures for
various ailments, became popular in the United States in the 1840s and 1850s. He also viewed masturbation
and excessive sex as a cause of disease and debility. His ideas led him to create what he believed to be
a perfect food that would maintain health: the Graham cracker, which he invented in 1829. Followers of
Graham, known as Grahamites, established boardinghouses where lodgers followed the recommended
strict diet and sexual regimen.
During the early nineteenth century, reformers also interested themselves in the workings of the mind in
an effort to better understand the effects of a rapidly changing world awash with religious revivals and
democratic movements. Phrenology—the mapping of the cranium to specific human attributes—stands
376 Chapter 13 | Antebellum Idealism and Reform Impulses, 1820–1860

as an early type of science, related to what would become psychology and devoted to understanding how
the mind worked. Phrenologists believed that the mind contained thirty-seven “faculties,” the strengths
or weaknesses of which could be determined by a close examination of the size and shape of the cranium
(Figure 13.14).

Figure 13.14 This March 1848 cover of the American Phrenological Journal illustrates the different faculties of the
mind as envisioned by phrenologists.

Initially developed in Europe by Franz Joseph Gall, a German doctor, phrenology first came to the United
States in the 1820s. In the 1830s and 1840s, it grew in popularity as lecturers crisscrossed the republic.
It was sometimes used as an educational test, and like temperance, it also became a form of popular
entertainment.

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Map the brain! Check out all thirty-seven of phrenology’s purported faculties
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The popularity of phrenology offers us some insight into the emotional world of the antebellum United
States. Its popularity speaks to the desire of those living in a rapidly changing society, where older ties to
community and family were being challenged, to understand one another. It appeared to offer a way to
quickly recognize an otherwise-unknown individual as a readily understood set of human faculties.

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Chapter 13 | Antebellum Idealism and Reform Impulses, 1820–1860 377

13.4 Addressing Slavery

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Identify the different approaches to reforming the institution of slavery
• Describe the abolitionist movement in the early to mid-nineteenth century

The issue of slavery proved especially combustible in the reform-minded antebellum United States. Those
who hoped to end slavery had different ideas about how to do it. Some could not envision a biracial
society and advocated sending blacks to Africa or the Caribbean. Others promoted the use of violence as
the best method to bring American slavery to an end. Abolitionists, by contrast, worked to end slavery
and to create a multiracial society of equals using moral arguments—moral suasion—to highlight the
immorality of slavery. In keeping with the religious fervor of the era, abolitionists hoped to bring about a
mass conversion in public opinion to end slavery.

“REFORMS” TO SLAVERY
An early and popular “reform” to slavery was colonization, or a movement advocating the displacement
of African Americans out of the country, usually to Africa. In 1816, the Society for the Colonization of Free
People of Color of America (also called the American Colonization Society or ACS) was founded with this
goal. Leading statesmen including Thomas Jefferson endorsed the idea of colonization.
Members of the ACS did not believe that blacks and whites could live as equals, so they targeted the
roughly 200,000 free blacks in the United States for relocation to Africa. For several years after the ACS’s
founding, they raised money and pushed Congress for funds. In 1819, they succeeded in getting $100,000
from the federal government to further the colonization project. The ACS played a major role in the
creation of the colony of Liberia, on the west coast of Africa. The country’s capital, Monrovia, was named
in honor of President James Monroe. The ACS stands as an example of how white reformers, especially
men of property and standing, addressed the issue of slavery. Their efforts stand in stark contrast with
other reformers’ efforts to deal with slavery in the United States.
Although rebellion stretches the definition of reform, another potential solution to slavery was its violent
overthrow. Nat Turner’s Rebellion, one of the largest slave uprisings in American history, took place in
1831, in Southampton County, Virginia. Like many slaves, Nat Turner was inspired by the evangelical
Protestant fervor sweeping the republic. He preached to fellow slaves in Southampton County, gaining a
reputation among them as a prophet. He organized them for rebellion, awaiting a sign to begin, until an
eclipse in August signaled that the appointed time had come.
Turner and as many as seventy other slaves killed their masters and their masters’ families, murdering a
total of around sixty-five people (Figure 13.15). Turner eluded capture until late October, when he was
tried, hanged, and then beheaded and quartered. Virginia put to death fifty-six other slaves whom they
believed to have taken part in the rebellion. White vigilantes killed two hundred more as panic swept
through Virginia and the rest of the South.
378 Chapter 13 | Antebellum Idealism and Reform Impulses, 1820–1860

Figure 13.15 In Horrid Massacre in Virginia, circa 1831, the text on the bottom reads, “The Scenes which the above
plate is designed to represent are Fig 1. a mother intreating for the lives of her children. -2. Mr. Travis, cruelly
murdered by his own Slaves. -3. Mr. Barrow, who bravely defended himself until his wife escaped. -4. A comp. of
mounted Dragoons in pursuit of the Blacks.” From whose side do you think the illustrator is telling this story?

MY STORY
Nat Turner on His Battle against Slavery
Thomas R. Gray was a lawyer in Southampton, Virginia, where he visited Nat Turner in jail. He published
The Confessions of Nat Turner, the leader of the late insurrection in Southampton, Va., as fully and
voluntarily made to Thomas R. Gray in November 1831, after Turner had been executed.
For as the blood of Christ had been shed on this earth, and had ascended to heaven for the
salvation of sinners, and was now returning to earth again in the form of dew . . . it was plain
to me that the Saviour was about to lay down the yoke he had borne for the sins of men, and
the great day of judgment was at hand. . . . And on the 12th of May, 1828, I heard a loud noise
in the heavens, and the Spirit instantly appeared to me and said the Serpent was loosened,
and Christ had laid down the yoke he had borne for the sins of men, and that I should take
it on and fight against the Serpent, . . . Ques. Do you not find yourself mistaken now? Ans.
Was not Christ crucified. And by signs in the heavens that it would make known to me when
I should commence the great work—and on the appearance of the sign, (the eclipse of the
sun last February) I should arise and prepare myself, and slay my enemies with their own
weapons.
How did Turner interpret his fight against slavery? What did he mean by the “serpent?”

Nat Turner’s Rebellion provoked a heated discussion in Virginia over slavery. The Virginia legislature
was already in the process of revising the state constitution, and some delegates advocated for an easier
manumission process. The rebellion, however, rendered that reform impossible. Virginia and other slave
states recommitted themselves to the institution of slavery, and defenders of slavery in the South
increasingly blamed northerners for provoking their slaves to rebel.
Literate, educated blacks, including David Walker, also favored rebellion. Walker was born a free black
man in North Carolina in 1796. He moved to Boston in the 1820s, lectured on slavery, and promoted the
first African American newspaper, Freedom’s Journal. He called for blacks to actively resist slavery and to
use violence if needed. He published An Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World in 1829, denouncing the
scheme of colonization and urging blacks to fight for equality in the United States, to take action against

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Chapter 13 | Antebellum Idealism and Reform Impulses, 1820–1860 379

racism. Walker died months after the publication of his Appeal, and debate continues to this day over the
cause of his death. Many believe he was murdered. Walker became a symbol of hope to free people in the
North and a symbol of the terrors of literate, educated blacks to the slaveholders of the South.

ABOLITIONISM
Abolitionists took a far more radical approach to the issue of the slavery by using moral arguments to
advocate its immediate elimination. They publicized the atrocities committed under slavery and aimed to
create a society characterized by equality of blacks and whites. In a world of intense religious fervor, they
hoped to bring about a mass awakening in the United States of the sin of slavery, confident that they could
transform the national conscience against the South’s peculiar institution.

William Lloyd Garrison and Antislavery Societies

William Lloyd Garrison of Massachusetts distinguished himself as the leader of the abolitionist
movement. Although he had once been in favor of colonization, he came to believe that such a scheme
only deepened racism and perpetuated the sinful practices of his fellow Americans. In 1831, he founded
the abolitionist newspaper The Liberator, whose first edition declared:
I am aware that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause for severity?
I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to
think, or speak, or write, with moderation. No! No! Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a
moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the
mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen;—but urge me not
to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest—I will not equivocate—I will not
excuse—I will not retreat a single inch—AND I WILL BE HEARD.
White Virginians blamed Garrison for stirring up slaves and instigating slave rebellions like Nat Turner’s.
Garrison founded the New England Anti-Slavery Society in 1831, and the American Anti-Slavery Society
(AASS) in 1833. By 1838, the AASS had 250,000 members, sometimes called Garrisonians. They rejected
colonization as a racist scheme and opposed the use of violence to end slavery. Influenced by evangelical
Protestantism, Garrison and other abolitionists believed in moral suasion, a technique of appealing to
the conscience of the public, especially slaveholders. Moral suasion relied on dramatic narratives, often
from former slaves, about the horrors of slavery, arguing that slavery destroyed families, as children were
sold and taken away from their mothers and fathers (Figure 13.16). Moral suasion resonated with many
women, who condemned the sexual violence against slave women and the victimization of southern white
women by adulterous husbands.
380 Chapter 13 | Antebellum Idealism and Reform Impulses, 1820–1860

Figure 13.16 These woodcuts of a chained and pleading slave, Am I Not a Man and a Brother? (a) and Am I Not a
Woman and a Sister?, accompanied abolitionist John Greenleaf Whittier’s antislavery poem, “Our Countrymen in
Chains.” Such images exemplified moral suasion: showing with pathos and humanity the moral wrongness of slavery.

Click and Explore

Read the full text of John Greenleaf Whittier’s antislavery poem

(http://openstaxcollege.org/l/15AmericasLost) “Our Countrymen in Chains.”
What imagery and rhetoric does Whittier use to advance the cause of abolitionism?

Garrison also preached immediatism: the moral demand to take immediate action to end slavery. He
wrote of equal rights and demanded that blacks be treated as equal to whites. He appealed to women and
men, black and white, to join the fight. The abolition press, which produced hundreds of tracts, helped
to circulate moral suasion. Garrison and other abolitionists also used the power of petitions, sending
hundreds of petitions to Congress in the early 1830s, demanding an end to slavery. Since most newspapers
published congressional proceedings, the debate over abolition petitions reached readers throughout the
nation.
Although Garrison rejected the U.S. political system as a tool of slaveholders, other abolitionists believed
mainstream politics could bring about their goal, and they helped create the Liberty Party in 1840. Its first
candidate was James G. Birney, who ran for president that year. Birney epitomized the ideal and goals of
the abolitionist movement. Born in Kentucky in 1792, Birney owned slaves and, searching for a solution to
what he eventually condemned as the immorality of slavery, initially endorsed colonization. In the 1830s,
however, he rejected colonization, freed his slaves, and began to advocate the immediate end of slavery.
The Liberty Party did not generate much support and remained a fringe third party. Many of its supporters
turned to the Free-Soil Party in the aftermath of the Mexican Cession.
The vast majority of northerners rejected abolition entirely. Indeed, abolition generated a fierce backlash
in the United States, especially during the Age of Jackson, when racism saturated American culture. Anti-
abolitionists in the North saw Garrison and other abolitionists as the worst of the worst, a threat to the
republic that might destroy all decency and order by upending time-honored distinctions between blacks
and whites, and between women and men. Northern anti-abolitionists feared that if slavery ended, the
North would be flooded with blacks who would take jobs from whites.

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Chapter 13 | Antebellum Idealism and Reform Impulses, 1820–1860 381

Opponents made clear their resistance to Garrison and others of his ilk; Garrison nearly lost his life in
1835, when a Boston anti-abolitionist mob dragged him through the city streets. Anti-abolitionists tried
to pass federal laws that made the distribution of abolitionist literature a criminal offense, fearing that
such literature, with its engravings and simple language, could spark rebellious blacks to action. Their
sympathizers in Congress passed a “gag rule” that forbade the consideration of the many hundreds
of petitions sent to Washington by abolitionists. A mob in Illinois killed an abolitionist named Elijah
Lovejoy in 1837, and the following year, ten thousand protestors destroyed the abolitionists’ newly built
Pennsylvania Hall in Philadelphia, burning it to the ground.

Frederick Douglass
Many escaped slaves joined the abolitionist movement, including Frederick Douglass. Douglass was born
in Maryland in 1818, escaping to New York in 1838. He later moved to New Bedford, Massachusetts, with
his wife. Douglass’s commanding presence and powerful speaking skills electrified his listeners when
he began to provide public lectures on slavery. He came to the attention of Garrison and others, who
encouraged him to publish his story. In 1845, Douglass published Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass,
An American Slave Written by Himself, in which he told about his life of slavery in Maryland (Figure 13.17).
He identified by name the whites who had brutalized him, and for that reason, along with the mere act of
publishing his story, Douglass had to flee the United States to avoid being murdered.

Figure 13.17 This 1856 ambrotype of Frederick Douglass (a) demonstrates an early type of photography developed
on glass. Douglass was an escaped slave who was instrumental in the abolitionism movement. His slave narrative,
told in Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave Written by Himself (b), followed a long line of
similar narratives that demonstrated the brutality of slavery for northerners unfamiliar with the institution.

British abolitionist friends bought his freedom from his Maryland owner, and Douglass returned to the
United States. He began to publish his own abolitionist newspaper, North Star, in Rochester, New York.
During the 1840s and 1850s, Douglass labored to bring about the end of slavery by telling the story of his
life and highlighting how slavery destroyed families, both black and white.
382 Chapter 13 | Antebellum Idealism and Reform Impulses, 1820–1860

MY STORY
Frederick Douglass on Slavery
Most white slaveholders frequently raped female slaves. In this excerpt, Douglass explains the
consequences for the children fathered by white masters and slave women.
Slaveholders have ordained, and by law established, that the children of slave women shall
in all cases follow the condition of their mothers . . . this is done too obviously to administer
to their own lusts, and make a gratification of their wicked desires profitable as well as
pleasurable . . . the slaveholder, in cases not a few, sustains to his slaves the double relation
of master and father. . . .
Such slaves [born of white masters] invariably suffer greater hardships . . . They are . . . a
constant offence to their mistress . . . she is never better pleased than when she sees them
under the lash, . . . The master is frequently compelled to sell this class of his slaves, out of
deference to the feelings of his white wife; and, cruel as the deed may strike any one to be,
for a man to sell his own children to human flesh-mongers, . . . for, unless he does this, he
must not only whip them himself, but must stand by and see one white son tie up his brother,
of but few shades darker . . . and ply the gory lash to his naked back.
—Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave Written
by Himself (1845)
What moral complications did slavery unleash upon white slaveholders in the South, according to
Douglass? What imagery does he use?

13.5 Women’s Rights

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Explain the connections between abolition, reform, and antebellum feminism
• Describe the ways antebellum women’s movements were both traditional and
revolutionary

Women took part in all the antebellum reforms, from transcendentalism to temperance to abolition. In
many ways, traditional views of women as nurturers played a role in encouraging their participation.
Women who joined the cause of temperance, for example, amplified their accepted role as moral guardians
of the home. Some women advocated a much more expansive role for themselves and their peers by
educating children and men in solid republican principles. But it was their work in antislavery efforts that
served as a springboard for women to take action against gender inequality. Many, especially northern
women, came to the conclusion that they, like slaves, were held in shackles in a society dominated by men.
Despite the radical nature of their effort to end slavery and create a biracial society, most abolitionist men
clung to traditional notions of proper gender roles. White and black women, as well as free black men,
were forbidden from occupying leadership positions in the AASS. Because women were not allowed to
join the men in playing leading roles in the organization, they formed separate societies, such as the Boston
Female Anti-Slavery Society, the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society, and similar groups.

THE GRIMKÉ SISTERS

Two leading abolitionist women, Sarah and Angelina Grimké, played major roles in combining the fight
to end slavery with the struggle to achieve female equality. The sisters had been born into a prosperous
slaveholding family in South Carolina. Both were caught up in the religious fervor of the Second Great
Awakening, and they moved to the North and converted to Quakerism.

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Chapter 13 | Antebellum Idealism and Reform Impulses, 1820–1860 383

In the mid-1830s, the sisters joined the abolitionist movement, and in 1837, they embarked on a public
lecture tour, speaking about immediate abolition to “promiscuous assemblies,” that is, to audiences of
women and men. This public action thoroughly scandalized respectable society, where it was unheard of
for women to lecture to men. William Lloyd Garrison endorsed the Grimké sisters’ public lectures, but
other abolitionists did not. Their lecture tour served as a turning point; the reaction against them propelled
the question of women’s proper sphere in society to the forefront of public debate.

THE DECLARATION OF RIGHTS AND SENTIMENTS

Participation in the abolitionist movement led some women to embrace feminism, the advocacy of
women’s rights. Lydia Maria Child, an abolitionist and feminist, observed, “The comparison between
women and the colored race is striking . . . both have been kept in subjection by physical force.” Other
women, including Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucy Stone, and Susan B. Anthony, agreed (Figure 13.18).

Figure 13.18 Elizabeth Cady Stanton (a) and Lucretia Mott (b) both emerged from the abolitionist movement as
strong advocates of women’s rights.

In 1848, about three hundred male and female feminists, many of them veterans of the abolition campaign,
gathered at the Seneca Falls Convention in New York for a conference on women’s rights that was
organized by Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. It was the first of what became annual meetings
that have continued to the present day. Attendees agreed to a “Declaration of Rights and Sentiments”
based on the Declaration of Independence; it declared, “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all
men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights;
that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” “The history of mankind,” the document
continued, “is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in
direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her.”
384 Chapter 13 | Antebellum Idealism and Reform Impulses, 1820–1860

Click and Explore

Read the entire text of the Declaration of Rights and Sentiments

(http://openstaxcollege.org/l/15SenecaFalls) in the Internet Modern History
Sourcebook at Fordham University.

REPUBLICAN MOTHERHOOD IN THE ANTEBELLUM YEARS

Some northern female reformers saw new and vital roles for their sex in the realm of education. They
believed in traditional gender roles, viewing women as inherently more moral and nurturing than men.
Because of these attributes, the feminists argued, women were uniquely qualified to take up the roles of
educators of children.
Catharine Beecher, the daughter of Lyman Beecher, pushed for women’s roles as educators. In her 1845
book, The Duty of American Women to Their Country, she argued that the United States had lost its moral
compass due to democratic excess. Both “intelligence and virtue” were imperiled in an age of riots and
disorder. Women, she argued, could restore the moral center by instilling in children a sense of right and
wrong. Beecher represented a northern, middle-class female sensibility. The home, especially the parlor,
became the site of northern female authority.

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Chapter 13 | Antebellum Idealism and Reform Impulses, 1820–1860 385

Key Terms
abolitionist a believer in the complete elimination of slavery

colonization the strategy of moving African Americans out of the United States, usually to Africa

immediatism the moral demand to take immediate action against slavery to bring about its end

millennialism the belief that the Kingdom of God would be established on earth and that God would
reign on earth for a thousand years characterized by harmony and Christian morality

moral suasion an abolitionist technique of appealing to the consciences of the public, especially
slaveholders

Mormons an American denomination, also known as the Latter-Day Saints, that emphasized patriarchal
leadership

phrenology the mapping of the mind to specific human attributes

pietistic the stressing of stressed transformative individual religious experience or piety over religious
rituals and formality

Second Great Awakening a revival of evangelical Protestantism in the early nineteenth century

Seneca Falls the location of the first American conference on women’s rights and the signing of the
“Declaration of Rights and Sentiments” in 1848

Shakers a religious sect that emphasized communal living and celibacy

teetotalism complete abstinence from all alcohol

temperance a social movement encouraging moderation or self-restraint in the consumption of alcoholic

beverages

transcendentalism the belief that all people can attain an understanding of the world that transcends
rational, sensory experience

Summary
13.1 An Awakening of Religion and Individualism
Evangelical Protestantism pervaded American culture in the antebellum era and fueled a belief in the
possibility of changing society for the better. Leaders of the Second Great Awakening like Charles G.
Finney urged listeners to take charge of their own salvation. This religious message dovetailed with the
new economic possibilities created by the market and Industrial Revolution, making the Protestantism
of the Second Great Awakening, with its emphasis on individual spiritual success, a reflection of the
individualistic, capitalist spirit of the age. Transcendentalists took a different approach, but like their
religiously oriented brethren, they too looked to create a better existence. These authors, most notably
Emerson, identified a major tension in American life between the effort to be part of the democratic
majority and the need to remain true to oneself as an individual.

13.2 Antebellum Communal Experiments

Reformers who engaged in communal experiments aimed to recast economic and social relationships by
introducing innovations designed to create a more stable and equitable society. Their ideas found many
386 Chapter 13 | Antebellum Idealism and Reform Impulses, 1820–1860

expressions, from early socialist experiments (such as by the Fourierists and the Owenites) to the dreams
of the New England intellectual elite (such as Brook Farm). The Second Great Awakening also prompted
many religious utopias, like those of the Rappites and Shakers. By any measure, the Mormons emerged as
the most successful of these.

13.3 Reforms to Human Health

Reformers targeted vices that corrupted the human body and society: the individual and the national soul.
For many, alcohol appeared to be the most destructive and widespread. Indeed, in the years before the
Civil War, the United States appeared to be a republic of drunkenness to many. To combat this national
substance abuse problem, reformers created a host of temperance organizations that first targeted the
middle and upper classes, and then the working classes. Thanks to Sylvester Graham and other health
reformers, exercise and fresh air, combined with a good diet, became fashionable. Phrenologists focused on
revealing the secrets of the mind and personality. In a fast-paced world, phrenology offered the possibility
of knowing different human characteristics.

13.4 Addressing Slavery

Contrasting proposals were put forth to deal with slavery. Reformers in the antebellum United States
addressed the thorny issue of slavery through contrasting proposals that offered profoundly different
solutions to the dilemma of the institution. Many leading American statesmen, including slaveholders,
favored colonization, relocating American blacks to Africa, which abolitionists scorned. Slave rebellions
sought the end of the institution through its violent overthrow, a tactic that horrified many in the North
and the South. Abolitionists, especially those who followed William Lloyd Garrison, provoked equally
strong reactions by envisioning a new United States without slavery, where blacks and whites stood on
equal footing. Opponents saw abolition as the worst possible reform, a threat to all order and decency.
Slaveholders, in particular, saw slavery as a positive aspect of American society, one that reformed the
lives of slaves by exposing them to civilization and religion.

13.5 Women’s Rights

The spirit of religious awakening and reform in the antebellum era impacted women lives by allowing
them to think about their lives and their society in new and empowering ways. Of all the various
antebellum reforms, however, abolition played a significant role in generating the early feminist
movement in the United States. Although this early phase of American feminism did not lead to political
rights for women, it began the long process of overcoming gender inequalities in the republic.

Review Questions
1. Which of the following is not a characteristic of 2. Transcendentalists were most concerned with
the Second Great Awakening? ________.
A. greater emphasis on nature A. the afterlife
B. greater emphasis on religious education of B. predestination
children C. the individual
C. greater church attendance D. democracy
D. belief in the possibility of a better world
3. What do the Second Great Awakening and
transcendentalism have in common?

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Chapter 13 | Antebellum Idealism and Reform Impulses, 1820–1860 387

4. Which religious community focused on the 10. In the context of the antebellum era, what
power of patriarchy? does colonization refer to?
A. Shakers A. Great Britain’s colonization of North
B. Mormons America
C. Owenites B. the relocation of African Americans to
D. Rappites Africa
C. American colonization of the Caribbean
5. Which community or movement is associated D. American colonization of Africa
with transcendentalism?
A. the Oneida Community 11. Which of the following did William Lloyd
B. the Ephrata Cloister Garrison not employ in his abolitionist efforts?
C. Brook Farm A. moral suasion
D. Fourierism B. immediatism
C. political involvement
6. How were the reform communities of the D. pamphleteering
antebellum era treated by the general population?
12. Why did William Lloyd Garrison’s
7. The first temperance laws were enacted by endorsement of the Grimké sisters divide the
________. abolitionist movement?
A. state governments A. They advocated equal rights for women.
B. local governments B. They supported colonization.
C. the federal government C. They attended the Seneca Falls Convention.
D. temperance organizations D. They lectured to co-ed audiences.

8. Sylvester Graham’s reformers targeted 13. Which female reformer focused on women’s
________. roles as the educators of children?
A. the human body A. Lydia Maria Child
B. nutrition B. Sarah Grimké
C. sexuality C. Catherine Beecher
D. all of the above D. Susan B. Anthony

9. Whom did temperance reformers target? 14. How did the abolitionist movement impact
the women’s movement?

Critical Thinking Questions

15. In what ways did the Second Great Awakening and transcendentalism reflect and react to the changes
in antebellum American thought and culture?

16. What did the antebellum communal projects have in common? How did the ones most influenced by
religion differ from those that had other influences?

17. In what ways do temperance, health reforms, and phrenology offer reflections on the changes in
the United States before the Civil War? What needs did these reforms fill in the lives of antebellum
Americans?

18. Of the various approaches to the problem of slavery, which one do you find to be the most effective
and why?

19. In what ways were antebellum feminists radical? In what ways were they traditional?
388 Chapter 13 | Antebellum Idealism and Reform Impulses, 1820–1860

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