Chapter 11: Responses to the Great Transformation, 1815-1840

1. Reactions to Changing Conditions
   1. A Second Great Awakening
      1. New Protestant ideas in the early nineteenth century emphasized the individual.
         1. Nathaniel Taylor’s theology taught that the individual could initiate salvation.
      2. Charles G. Finney sparked an intense religious revival that swept the country.
         1. Thousands attended revival meetings.
      3. Revivalism challenged existing church authority.
         1. New denominations emerged.
         2. Multiplication of denominations reinforced belief in the separation of church and state.
      4. Revivalism led to a new sense of Christian community-of responsibility for fellow Christians.
         1. This led to missionary outreach efforts and to benevolent reform movements.
   2. The Middle Class and Moral Reform
      1. Hundreds of voluntary societies arose in behalf of many reform causes.
         1. These organizations provided outlets for members of the new upper and middle classes.
      2. Religious idealism influenced many of the reform movements.
         1. New approaches to the criminal and the insane emerged.
         2. Bible societies, Sunday schools, and Sabbath-rest movements developed.
      3. Many of the reform movements sought to impose middle-class standards of behavior.
      4. Educational reform was one such movement.
         1. Horace Mann led the movement for public schooling for the children of all classes.
         2. In addition to teaching practical knowledge, the public schools sought to impart Protestant religious values.
         3. In reaction, Catholics established their own schools.
      5. Temperance was another such movement.
         1. It had its roots not only in religious idealism but also in its attractiveness to factory owners for economic reasons.
         2. Increasing public drunkenness in the cities and less use of alcohol by the middle and upper classes contributed to it.
   3. The Rise of Abolitionism
      1. Slavery as a moral question began to capture national attention after the War of 1812.
      2. The American Colonization Society proposed to return freed slaves to Africa.
      3. More radical opponents of slavery began to call for its complete abolition.
         1. The American Anti-Slavery Society, founded by William Lloyd Garrison, advocated immediate abolition and no compensation for owners.
      4. Abolition was not a popular cause.
         1. Mobs attacked abolitionists and broke up their meetings.
         2. Congress refused to debate the existence of slavery between 1836 and 1844.
   4. The Beginnings of Working-Class Culture and Protest
      1. Drinking was the social distraction of choice among working people and was central to most social activities.
      2. Violence abounded: between individuals, as well as between rioting ethnic, religious, and racial groups.
      3. Women were worse off than men.
         1. Single women earned less than men.
         2. Married women were confined to tiny apartments and were barred from many activities available to men.
      4. It is not surprising that some manufacturing workers began to rise in protest.
         1. Skilled journeymen took the lead in organizing protest movements.
         2. They were reacting to their loss of economic and social position because of the rise of the factory system.
         3. Journeymen formed craft unions as well as the National Trades’ Union, but unions accomplished little.
         4. In Commonwealth v. Hunt,the Massachusetts Supreme Court recognized the legality of unions and strikes.
      5. Labor protests were at times violent.
      6. Ethnic riots often reflected tension between skilled American workers and unskilled immigrant laborers.
   5. Culture, Resistance, and Rebellion Among Southern Slaves
      1. Traces of African heritage were visible in slaves’ clothing, entertainment, folkways, and religion.
         1. The joining of African musical forms with Christian lyrics gave rise to the spiritual.
      2. Most slaves, too, restricted themselves to passive resistance rather than open protests.
      3. The most active and most frightening form of slave resistance was open and armed revolt.
      4. Turner’s Rebellion led to stricter controls.
2. Toward an American Culture
   1. Romanticism and Genteel Culture
      1. Americans imported Romanticism as a mode of thought from Europe.
      2. Leading cultural figures in America combined individualism with Romanticism.
         1. In so doing, they emphasized the positive features of American life and experience, and the uniqueness of America.
      3. In religion, the combination of individualism and Romanticism gave rise to Transcendentalism.
         1. Ralph Waldo Emerson fashioned the ideas of Transcendentalism.
      4. Emerson also led the way in the development of an American literature.
         1. In "The American Scholar," he called for independence from European literary models.
      5. Leading literary figures in American Transcendentalism included:
         1. Henry David Thoreau
         2. James Fenimore Cooper
         3. Herman Melville
         4. Nathaniel Hawthorne
         5. Edgar Allan Poe
      6. In the visual arts, emphasis on American scenes replaced the neoclassicism of the beginning of the nineteenth century.
         1. Thomas Cole painted the American landscape and created the Hudson River School.
         2. George Caleb Bingham painted the common man.
   2. Radical Attempts to Regain Community
      1. American cultural leaders and their followers who reacted to excesses in individualism established experimental communities.
         1. Brook Farm and about one hundred other communities tried out socialist Fourierism.
         2. Robert Owen experimented with communal utopianism for workers at New Harmony, Indiana.
      2. Experimental religious communities also arose.
         1. Oneida combined communal living with group marriage.
         2. The Shakers established communities practicing celibacy.
      3. Joseph Smith established the Mormon church, influenced by both religion and Romanticism.
         1. Smith led his religious community from New York to Ohio, from there to Missouri, and then to Illinois.
3. The Whig Alternative to Jacksonian Democracy
   1. The End of the Old Party Structure
      1. Anti-Jackson forces were at first unable to unite.
         1. Three anti-Jackson parties ran in 1832, all going down to defeat.
   2. The New Political Coalition
      1. Anti-Jackson forces-Clay’s supporters, Southern nullifiers, Antimasons, and Christian reformers-coalesced in the Whig party.
         1. Whigs beat many Democrats (Jackson’s party) in the 1834 congressional elections.
   3. Van Buren in the White House
      1. Democrat Van Buren won the presidency in 1836.
         1. Whig strategy-force the election into the House of Representatives by having many candidates-backfired.
      2. Van Buren’s presidency was plagued by economic turmoil.
         1. The Panic of 1837, caused by Biddle’s activities against Jackson and by Jackson’s Specie Circular, initiated a harsh depression.
         2. Van Buren added to the problem by adhering to hard-money policies, by cutting government spending, and by establishing regional Treasury offices.
   4. Log Cabin and Hard-Cider Campaign of 1840
      1. The Whigs won with Harrison because:
         1. They united behind one candidate.
         2. They nominated a Southern Democrat for vice president.
         3. They portrayed Harrison as a common man and Van Buren as an aristocrat.
         4. The depression ruined Van Buren’s chances.