AP United States History - Terms and People – Unit 5, Chapter 15 (13th Ed.)

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The Ferment of Reform and Culture: 1790 - 1860

Before studying Chapter 15, read over these “Themes”:

Theme: The spectacular religious revivals of the Second Great Awakening reversed a trend toward secular rationalism in American culture, and helped to fuel a spirit of social reform. In the process, religion was increasingly feminized, while women in turn took the lead in movements of reform, including those designed to improve their own condition.

Theme: The attempt to improve Americans faith, morals, and character affected nearly all areas of American life and culture, including education, the family, literature, and the arts, culminating in the great crusade against slavery.

Theme: Intellectual and cultural development in America was less prolific than in Europe, but they did earn some international recognition and became more distinctly American, especially after the War of 1812.

After studying Chapter 15 in your textbook, you should be able to:

1.  Describe the changes in American religion and their effects on culture and social reform.

2.  Describe the causes of the most important reform movements of the period.

3.  Explain the origins of American feminism and describe its various manifestations.

4.  Describe the utopian and communitarian experiments of the period.

5.  Identify the early American achievements in the arts and sciences.

6.  Analyze the American literary flowering of the early nineteenth century, especially in relation to transcendentalism and other ideas of the time.

Know the following people and terms. Consider the historical significance of each term or person. Also note the dates of the event if that is pertinent.

A. People

Dorothea Dix

+Stephen Foster

James Russell Lowell

William Miller

Washington Irving

Oliver Wendell Holmes

Lucretia Mott

+James Fenimore Cooper

Elizabeth Blackwell

+Horace Mann

Peter Cartwright

+Noah Webster

+Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Sylvester Graham

Edgar Allan Poe

+Susan B. Anthony

+Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Robert Owen

+Henry David Thoreau

+Herman Melville

Charles G. Finney

William H. McGuffey

Emma Willard

Louis Agassiz

+Walt Whitman

John J. Audubon

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Louisa May Alcott

Gilbert Stuart

Margaret Fuller

Francis Parkman

+Joseph Smith

+Brigham Young

+Phineas T. Barnum

+=One of the 100 Most Influential Americans of All Time, as ranked by The Atlantic. Go to Webpage to see all 100.

B.  Terms:

Deism

polygamy

theocracy

utopian

communitarian

transcendentalism

American Temperance Society

Shakers

Maine Law of 1851

Unitarian

Second Great Awakening

Hudson River school

Women’s Rights Convention

Knickerbocker group

Burned-Over District

Declaration of Sentiments

Millerites

Oneida Community

Mormons

C. Sample Essays: Using what you have previously learned and what you learned by reading

Chapter 15, you should be able to answer essays such as these:

1. What role did women play in the intellectual and literary movements of the early 1800’s?

2. In what ways did the American literature in the early nineteenth century reflect the “New Democracy “of the

Jacksonian age?

D. Voices from the past:

I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous to them than your ancestors…all men would be

tyrants if they could.

Abigail Adams, in a letter to her husband John in 1776

In education, in marriage, in religion, in everything, disappointment is the lot of women.

Lucy Stone, 1855

Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string…. Whose would be a man, a man must be a non-conformist.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self-Reliance” (1841)

If a man does not keep pace with his companion, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.

Henry David Thoreau

I come to present the strong claims of suffering humanity. I come to place before the Legislature of Massachusetts

the condition of the miserable, the desolate, the outcast. I come as the advocate of helpless, forgotten, insane men and

women; of beings sunk to a condition from which the unconcerned world would start with real horror.

Dorothea Dix, from her Memorial to the Legislature of Massachusetts, 1843

F. Matching People, Places, and Events: Match the person, place or event in the left column with the

proper description in the right column by placing the correct letter on the blank line.

_____1. Dorothea Dix A. Leader of a radical New York commune that practiced “complex

marriage” and eugenic birth control.

_____2. Brigham Young B. Bold, unconventional poet who celebrated American democracy

C. The “Mormon Moses” who led persecuted Latter-Day Saints to their

_____3. Elizabeth Cady Stanton promised land in Utah

D. Influential evangelical revivalist of the Second Great Awakening

_____4. Lucretia Mott E. New York writer whose romantic sea tales were more popular than

his dark literary masterpiece, Moby Dick

_____5. Horace Mann F. Believed tax-supported public schools was essential for social

stability and democracy

_____6. John J. Audubon G. Pioneering women’s educator, founder of Mount Holyoke Seminary in

Massachusetts

_____7. Charles G. Finney H. Idealistic Scottish industrialist whose attempt at a communal utopia in

America failed

_____8. Robert Owen I. Author of magnificently illustrated Birds of America

J. Second-rate poet and philosopher, but first-rate promoter of

_____9. John Humphrey Noyes transcendentalist ideals and American culture

K. Eccentric “southern” genius whose tales of mystery, suffering and

_____10.Mary Lyon the supernatural departed from general American literary trends.

L. Quietly determined reformer who substantially improved conditions for

_____11.Louisa May Alcott the mentally ill

M. Reclusive New England poet, who wrote about love, death and

_____12.James Fenimore Cooper immortality

N. Leading feminist who wrote the “Declaration of Sentiments” in 1848

_____13.Emily Dickinson and pushed for women’s suffrage

O. Most noteworthy southern novelist before the Civil War

_____14.Ralph Waldo Emerson P. Novelist whose tales of family life, such as Little Women, helped

economically support her own struggling transcendentalist family

_____15.Walt Whitman Q. Path-breaking American novelist who contrasted the natural person

of the forest with the values of modern civilization

_____16.William Gilmore Simms R. Quaker women’s rights advocate who also strongly supported the

abolition of slavery

_____17.Edgar Allan Poe

_____18.Herman Melville

E.  Matching Cause and Effect: Match the historical cause in the left column with the proper effect in the right column by writing the correct letter on the blank line.

Cause Effect

____ 1. The Second Great Awakening A. Created the first literature genuinely native to America

B. Captured in one long poem the exuberant and

____ 2. The Mormon practice of polygamy optimistic spirit of popular American democracy

C. Caused most utopian experiments to decline or

____ 3. Women abolitionists’ anger at being collapse in a few years

ignored by male reformers D. Inspired writers like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry

David Thoreau and Margaret Fuller

____ 4. The women’s rights movement E. Aroused hostility and scorn in most of the male press

and pulpit

____ 5. Unrealistic expectations and conflict F. Made their works little understood in their lifetimes by

within perfectionist communities generally optimistic Americans

G. Aroused persecution from morally traditionalist

____ 6.The Knickerbocker and transcendentalist Americans and delayed statehood for Utah

use of new American themes in their writing H. Inspired a widespread spirit of evangelical reform in

many areas of American life

____ 7. Henry David Thoreau’s theory of civil I. Led to expanding the crusade for equal rights to

disobedience include women

J. Inspired later practitioners of nonviolence like

____ 8. Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.

____ 9. Herman Melville’s and Edgar Allan Poe’s concern with evil and suffering

____10. The Transcendentalist movement

G. Can You Identify? Match the person, place or event in the left column with the proper description in the

right column by placing the correct letter on the blank line.

_____ 1. Transcendentalism A. Liberal religious belief, held by many of the Founding Fathers, that

stressed rationalism and moral behavior rather than Christian revelation

_____ 2. Leaves of Grass B. Religious revival that began on the frontier and swept eastward,

stirring an evangelical spirit in many areas of American life.

_____ 3. Mormons C. The two religious denominations that benefited from the evangelical

revivals of the early nineteenth century.

_____ 4. Deism D. Religious group founded by Joseph Smith that eventually

established a cooperative commonwealth in Utah.

_____ 5. The Scarlet Letter E. 1848 meeting in New York where women made an appeal based on

the Declaration of Independence.

_____ 6. civil disobedience F. Commune established in Indiana by Scottish industrialist Robert

Owen.

_____ 7. Second Great Awakening G. Intellectual commune in Massachusetts based on “plain living and

high thinking.”

_____ 8. Seneca Falls Convention H. Thomas Jefferson’s stately self-designed home in Virginia that

became a model of American architecture

_____ 9. Methodists and Baptists I. Philosophical and literary movement, centered in New England, that

greatly influenced many American writers of the early 19th century

_____10. New Harmony J. The doctrine, promoted by American writer Henry David Thoreau in

an essay of the same name, that later influenced Gandhi and King

_____11. Brook Farm K. Walt Whitman’s shocking collection of emotional poems

L.  A disturbing New England masterpiece about adultery and guilt in

_____12. Monticello the old Puritan era.

After this Unit is done, detach the next page and save it for the course review at the end of the year.

Comparing and Contrasting:

The First and Second Great Awakening

First Great Awakening

When Where Leaders Impact

1730s
and 1740s /
13 colonies / Jonathon Edwards
George Whitefield / “New Lights,” ministers who believed in the revitalization
of the Great Awakening, attacked old style,
orthodox clergy – “Old Lights”
Emphasized direct, emotive spirituality
Strengthened the Baptists
First spontaneous mass movement of the American people

Second Great Awakening

When Where Leaders Impact

1800s
to
1840s / Mainly along the “frontier’ regions of the new country, particularly western New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and the Carolinas / Peter Cartwright
Charles Grandison
Finney / Furthered the fragmentation of religious faiths
Tended to denounce slavery and alcohol
Emphasized the importance of women in the church
and in the family

(save this page for review at the end of the year)