Questions for Days 131-150: 1. Charles Grandison Finney was an evangelist who was a preacher who helped in religiously reviving Americans. He was the first of the professional evangelists. 2. Dorothea Dix was a crusader who supported mentally impaired people.
During the 1800’s, those who saw social prejudice or corruption started many reform movements to correct the difficulties in America. The Second Great Awakening really helped shape the United States into a religious nation and paved the way through the reform movements, while stressing individual choice that caused an uprising in denominations leading to followers by the masses. Antislavery abolitionism became a movement mostly because of influence from the religious revival that was taking place, and demonstrating to all of those religious that slavery is a sin. Reformists of the antislavery movement transformed their thoughts forward of equality to all people, no matter their race.
The disenfranchisement of Black Americans is as old as their presence in The United States. This disenfranchisement manifests itself in many different ways and is perpetuated on an institutional and individual levels. The oppression that blacks face have been consistently resisted by Black people and our allies. One of the more favorable ways of resistance towards institutional racism in the past and in the present has been to create legal reform. Laws such as the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendment, also referred to as Reconstruction Amendments, are some laws that alleviated the oppression black people faced.
“Independence, free will, and personal effort are considered primary virtues that contribute not only to personal achievement but also to the success and well-being of the nation.” This quote, stated by Charles Finney, means that people must be able to choose for themselves and make their own decisions in order for the country to become better than it is. The Second Great Awakening began for several different reasons, consisted of many different church revivals and leaders, and ultimately had a lasting impact for several more years after the end of the Second Great Awakening. There were several different factors that led up to the Second Great Awakening. Some such factors are listed by Richard Kaplan in his article titled, The Second Great
Back in the day temperance was trying to get rid of alcohol because people was going to work drunk. Temperance was a real big issue in the progressive era. Accordingly, temperance was a political movement in the united states, since alcohol was not as well as the supporters movement against drugs, alcohol, and temperance. Temperance movement was about banning alcohol. The progressive era was against temperance because of the violence that was due to alcohol.
In the wake of the second Great Awakening in the early 1800’s, societal morals regarding slavery, lack of rights for women, the prison system, education, and other institutions were questioned. Unitarianism stressed salvation through good works, and both religious converts and transcendentalists initiated social reform movements in an attempt to improve the moral state of America. Two of these movements that included perhaps the most controversy and struggle included abolitionism and women’s rights. Although both the abolitionist and women’s rights movements were able to eventually create lasting societal and political change, the fact that only a small portion of the population had any democratic rights showed the initial weaknesses of American democracy.
For the United States, the mid-nineteenth century is a time when social activism in American society is reflected in the writing. These writers were determined to change the way of life, if not for themselves, for someone else. Their writings would become incite to some of the deepest issues of the time. First, social activism in America is seen in the efforts of women to gain legal and social equality as citizens and as human beings in their private lives. Elizabeth Cady Stanton wanted to change the rights of the female population.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, American society began to focus on the welfare of minority groups. Women’s suffrage and abolition were rooted as deeply as the history of America, but asylum and prison reform sprouted with the Second Great Awakening, a movement that occurred in the early 1800s. The Second Great Awakening was led by religious leaders who advocated for changes in American society through the unity of the American people (Doc. Due to the Second Great Awakening, reform movements were established between 1825 and 1850 in order to represent the changes the people sought for in the issues of slavery, suffrage, and asylum and prison reform. The social aspect of the abolition movement led to the visible democratic changes in society and politics.
Many reform movements between 1825 and 1850 sought to expand democratic ideals by advocating many social and political changes including movements to prohibit alcoholic beverages, to increase public education, and to support rights for women. Movements within society were encouraged through the church as well as harmony.
Moral improvement occurred when reformers wanted immigrants and poor city dwellers to uplift themselves by improving their moral behavior (Danzer 513). A women 's group from Cleveland, the Women 's Christian Temperance Union, believed that alcohol undermined morals and led to bad behavior (Fagnilli 29). They believed the way to complete the moral goal was to make the country a “dry” country. Another prohibitionist group was the Anti Saloon League. This group endorsed politicians who supported banning alcohol, and organized state reform to try to ban alcohol.
Officials wanted the prohibition to eradicate crime and preserve the sanctity of the population, as seen in the illustration of alcohol's eventual downward spiral in Document #4. The illustration was made during the heart of the Temperance Movement to protest the “Alcoholic Republic.” Furthermore, Dorothea Dix’s fight against mental institution care and prison facilities led to yet another reform. The poor
The Temperance Movement, starting in 1808, was the first significant attempt to outlaw alcohol. Members of the movement believed alcohol was unconstitutional and caused family violence and crime. In 1900, Carry Nation, who believed saloons were associated with gambling, prostitution, and violence, organized the destruction of many saloons and was arrested. Later in twentieth century came the Prohibition Movement. Supporters thought the poor were wasting their limited money at saloons, and industrial leaders believed a ban on alcohol would increase productivity of workers.
Reform movements sought to expand democratic ideals in the years 1825 to 1850. These reform movements ranged from religion to women’s rights. While some movements were a success there were failures as well such as nativism and utopias. They failed to exemplify to democratic society. The reform movements were ignited by the Second Great Awakening.
Throughout the first half of the 19th century, people worked to better their lives and reform the flaws they saw in society. The 1800's were what the American people at the time called the "era of good feeling", but there were still many problems within American society. These problems or "social ills" later led to the Reform Movement which targeted such ills. Groups of individuals were solely created to be the driving forces of this movement. The Reform Movement has greatly impacted the United States history.
The Progressive Reform Movement The Progressive Era is often looked as an age of reformation from the economic boom in the Gilded Age. From around 1890 to 1920s, citizens of the progressive reform movement had plans to amplify our American government and economy. The different outlooks and biases have created many interpretations of this era, along with many others. Historians have many different interpretations of the reform movement during the Progressive Era.
