Module 13 - HIS 210 - U.S. History through the Civil War - Textbook - LibGuides at Hostos Community College Library

Module 13: Nineteenth Century Social Reform Movements

Learning Outcome

To understand that the social reform movements of the first half of the nineteenth century were responses to the economic and political changes of the day, but they also had significant social, economic, and political repercussions of their own.
White women and African Americans inserted themselves into political discussions that they were never intended to participate in, thereby changing the political culture of the nation.
Social reformers—particularly abolitionists—were successful in forcing certain issues onto the national political agenda (slavery) and changing the way people thought and talked about those issues.

Bateaux à Vapeur Géant, la Nouvelle-Orléans 1853 (Giant Steamboats at New Orleans, 1853), by Hippolyte Sebron, shows how New Orleans, at the mouth of the Mississippi River, was the primary trading hub for the cotton that fueled the growth of the southern economy.

Content

Introduction
By the mid-nineteenth century, southern commercial centers like New Orleans had become home to the greatest concentration of wealth in the United States... Meanwhile, slavery shaped the culture and society of the South, which rested on a racial ideology of White supremacy and a vision of the United States as a White man’s republic. Enslaved people endured the traumas of slavery by creating their own culture and using the Christian message of redemption to find hope for a world of freedom without violence.
12.1 The Economics of Cotton
Southern cotton, picked and processed by enslaved labor, helped fuel the nineteenth-century Industrial Revolution in both the United States and Great Britain.
12.2 African Americans in the Antebellum United States
By 1850, about 3.2 million enslaved people labored in the United States, 1.8 million of whom worked in the cotton fields. They faced arbitrary power abuses from White people; they coped by creating family and community networks.
12.3 Wealth and Culture in the South
During the antebellum years, wealthy southern planters formed an elite class that wielded most of the economic and political power of the region. They created their own standards of gentility and honor, defining ideals of southern White manhood and womanhood and shaping the culture of the South.
12.4 The Filibuster and the Quest for New Slave States
In the 1850s, the expansionist drive among White southerners intensified. Among southern imperialists, one way to push for the creation of an American empire of slavery was through the actions of filibusters.
Introduction
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.
13.1 An Awakening of Religion and Individualism
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.
13.3 Reforms to Human Health
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.
13.4 Addressing Slavery
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.
13.5 Women’s Rights
Until states began passing property laws in the 1840s, husbands often fully controlled women's earnings, collection of debts, and rights regarding inheritance. The laws gave women some additional power, but that power was far from universal.
David Walker’s Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World, 1829
In 1829, Walker wrote the remarkable Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World. In it, he exposed the hypocrisies of American claims of freedom and Christianity, attacked the plan to colonize black Americans in Africa, and predicted that God’s justice promised violence for the slaveholding United States.
William Lloyd Garrison Introduces The Liberator
In 1831, William Lloyd Garrison created a newspaper, called The Liberator. This is the opening essay he used to explain the purpose of his paper.

Caption on recto: "I sell the Shadow to Support the Substance"

Declaration of Sentiments

"At the conclusion [of the Convention], 68 women and 32 men signed the Declaration of Sentiments drafted by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the M'Clintock family."

Media

Sojourner Truth Speech of 1851 performed at Kansas State University's 8th Diversity Summit April 1, 2011. Performed by Pat Theriault.

Attribution

David Walker's Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World
Source: African American History and Culture, https://courses.lumenlearning.com/atd-fscj-africanamericanhistory/
Authored by: Florida State College at Jacksonville License: CC BY: Attribution
Authored by: David Walker License: Public Domain: No Known Copyright

William Lloyd Garrison Introduces The Liberator
Source: African American History and Culture, https://courses.lumenlearning.com/atd-fscj-africanamericanhistory/
Authored by: Florida State College at Jacksonville. License: CC BY: Attribution
Authored by: William Lloyd Garrison License: Public Domain: No Known Copyright

Sojourner Truth [Photograph]
Source: Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Photographs and Prints Division, The New York Public Library. https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/e343f290-2187-0132-a2ba-58d385a7bbd0
Public Domain

Declaration of Sentiments
Source: National Park Service, https://www.nps.gov/wori/learn/historyculture/declaration-of-sentiments.htm
Public Domain

Sojourner Truth Speech of 1851, "Ain't I a Woman"
Source: Pat Theriault, April 1, 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XilHJc9IZvE

HIS 210 - U.S. History through the Civil War - Textbook

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HIS 210 U.S. History through the Civil War

Module 13: Nineteenth Century Social Reform Movements

Content

Media

Attribution