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APUSH Review_ Antebellum Era Reforms.mp415 19th Century Reforms_ Crash Course US History #15.mp4In the early 1800s, the United States grew rapidly in size and population. Many Americans worried about the social problems they saw growing around them. To help solve these problems, some people started reform movements, or efforts to improve society.
What was life like in the early 1800s?
Most people still lived and worked on farms, but life for many Americans was beginning to change in important ways:
Cities were beginning to grow more rapidly than before.
The first factories were built in states such as Rhode Island and Massachusetts.
People were immigrating to the United States from places such as Ireland and Germany, bringing a new mix of cultures.
Many people turned to religion to help deal with problems they saw in society. Throughout U.S. history, the majority of Americans have been Christians. But religious enthusiasm was especially high during a period called the Second Great Awakening, from about the 1790s to the 1840s. During this period, ministers traveled the country preaching new religious ideas. Some of the religious ideas of the Second Great Awakening were expressed in hymns, or religious songs. The passage below comes from "Amazing Grace," a hymn that was popular at the time. Read the first few lines from the hymn.
Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.
grace: forgiveness freely given by God
wretch: a bad, unhappy person
Why is it called the Second Great Awakening?
A "Great Awakening" is a period of religious revival, when more people attend religious services and have personal religious experiences. Another revival, the First Great Awakening, had happened earlier, in the 1730s and 1740s.
"An angry God"?
Despite their similar names, the two Great Awakenings inspired very different emotions.
Jonathan Edwards, the most famous preacher of the First Great Awakening, gave a sermon called "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." Here is one famous passage from the sermon:
The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider or some [disgusting] insect over the fire, [hates] you. . . . His wrath towards you burns like fire.
What kind of emotion do you think Edwards wanted his listeners to feel? How is the tone of this sermon different from the tone of Amazing Grace?
During the Second Great Awakening, some people had sudden religious experiences, such as feeling that they were in the presence of God. Sometimes, these experiences inspired them to change both their lives and the world. One person who had a religious experience was an African American woman named Isabella Baumfree.
"The Spirit calls me, and I must go"
Sojourner Truth said these words after her religious experience. She meant that she believed that God had told her to go and preach around the country. During the Second Great Awakening, many people like Truth had sudden religious experiences. Some said that they had received messages from God or had felt God's presence.
The idea of sudden religious experiences is still alive today. Some people call themselves "born-again Christians" because they have had experiences of this kind and have committed themselves to God.
Although many Americans joined reform movements, many others opposed them.
"A goose that deserves to be hissed"
Some people opposed reform movements because women participated in them. Many people believed that the proper place for women was in the home and that they should not take part in reform.
Some people tried to keep women from speaking by criticizing or making fun of them. This cartoon was drawn by an opponent of reform. It shows the reformer Frances Wright, drawn to look like a goose. The caption calls Wright "a goose that deserves to be hissed." This meant that she was a foolish person who should be booed.
Many women continued to speak in support of reform, even though they faced these kinds of attacks.
One of the largest reform movements was called the temperance movement. This movement tried to convince people to avoid drinking alcoholic beverages, such as whiskey. The illustrations below were made in the late 1840s. The left image is called the Tree of Intemperance. Intemperance means drinking too much alcohol. The right image is called the Tree of Temperance. Temperance means avoiding alcohol.
These images argue that drinking alcohol has bad effects on people's lives and that temperance has good effects. So, the images were likely made by people who supported the temperance movement.
Take a closer look!
The pro-temperance images also contain some additional symbols. Look in the background of the Tree of Intemperance. Two men are fighting on a city street outside a store that sells alcohol. Many people thought crowded cities were the cause or the main site of social problems.
The tree also includes colored circles that show the "fruits," or outcomes, of a life of intemperance. They say things such as "gambling" and "robbery."
In the Tree of Temperance image, the background shows a farm on the left and a country church on the right. Many Americans saw rural life as a symbol of good morality.
The "fruits" on this tree say things such as "success" and "a happy home."
The temperance movement gained followers in all parts of the country. People had many different reasons for supporting the temperance movement.
What became of the temperance movement?
It succeeded, for a while. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, the temperance movement persuaded some states to ban selling alcoholic beverages. Then in 1919, the U.S. adopted a constitutional amendment banning alcohol sales nationwide. But violent mobsters began selling alcohol illegally, so in 1933, the country adopted another amendment making alcohol sales legal again.
An unexpected health food
During the mid-1800s, people became interested in many different ideas for healthy living. Sylvester Graham, a minister and temperance supporter, believed people should eat only plain-tasting foods, including vegetables and coarsely ground flour. His followers, called Grahamites, ground up graham flour and used that to make graham crackers.
How do you think Sylvester Graham would have felt about s'mores?
In the early 1800s, many communities did not have schools to educate children. But by the 1830s, the economy was changing in ways that made education more important. For example, more people were coming to cities to buy and sell goods. If people could read and do math, then they could better calculate how much money to pay.
In addition, more immigrants were moving to the United States from places such as Germany. Some Americans wanted the immigrants' children to learn the local ways of life so they could adapt to their new country.
To meet these needs, in 1837 Massachusetts created a statewide board of education and named Horace Mann as its leader. Mann started a movement to build schools for all young children. These were called common schools.
What were schools like during the early 1800s?
In rural areas, students went to school in one-room schoolhouses, with children of different ages all learning together. Cities began building larger schools, with students separated by grade level.
Schools focused mainly on the 3 Rs: "reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic." Students often memorized texts and then recited them, or said them aloud to the class.
Students who did well moved up to sit at the front of the classroom, called the "head of the class." Students who misbehaved could be punished with beatings.
Dorothea Dix was a teacher and school founder in Boston. One Sunday in 1841, Dix went to teach religious classes at a local prison. She was shocked to find mentally ill people there. She then traveled to towns across the state, visiting the places where mentally ill people were kept. In 1843, Dix wrote a report on her research for the Massachusetts state legislature. Read the following passage from her report.
Gentlemen, [I] call your attention to the present state of [mentally ill] persons confined within this [state], in cages, closets, cellars, stalls, pens!...
I offer the following [examples] from my notebook.…
[in the town of] Medford: One [mentally ill person] chained, and one in a close stall for seventeen years…
Granville: One often closely confined, now losing the use of his limbs from want of exercise…
Dedham: The [mentally ill person] disadvantageously placed in the jail. In the [poorhouse], two females in stalls…in the main building, lie in wooden bunks filled with straw; always shut up…
Men of Massachusetts, I beg, I implore, I demand pity and protection.…Raise up the fallen,…restore the outcast, [and] defend the helpless.
confined: kept in a small place
disadvantageously: harmfully
men of Massachusetts: men of the state legislature
implore: ask
Why were mentally ill people in jail?
There were simply very few places for them to be. Some had outlived their family members, or their families were unable to care for them. If mentally ill people were suffering in public, they could be taken into the jail or poorhouse.
Did Dorothea Dix succeed?
Yes, for the most part. Dix successfully lobbied, or persuaded, many state legislatures to build or expand state mental hospitals. These hospitals often had nice architecture and beautiful landscapes to help soothe patients.
Dorothea Dix persuaded the state of North Carolina to build a mental hospital near the state capital, Raleigh. It was later renamed Dorothea Dix Hospital.
Other reformers were also interested in the prison system. Some wanted to improve how the prison system worked for inmates, or imprisoned people. Older prisons had mainly tried to punish inmates. But reformers thought prisons should make the inmates feel sorry for their crimes and help them improve their lives. In 1826, a reformer described life in a reformed prison in Massachusetts. Read the following passage adapted from his report:
During the night, all the inmates are in separate cells. The cells are arranged so that a watchman can preserve complete silence and prevent evil communication among the inmates. When the cells are unlocked in the morning, the inmates march like soldiers, in perfect silence, to their places of labor. All is order and silence, except the busy hum of hard work. When evening comes, the inmates march to the chapel, where the minister closes the day with Bible readings and prayer.
Adapted from Lewis Tappan, "Remarks on Prisons and Prison Discipline." The Christian Examiner, 1826.
Doing time in the "state pen"
Reformed prisons were called penitentiaries because they aimed to make inmates feel penitent, or sorry. Reformers believed that if inmates felt sorry, they would be more likely to avoid committing crimes when they got out.
Someone is always watching . . .
The image below shows a reformed prison called the Eastern State Penitentiary. Notice how a watchman standing in the center of the building could look and listen down all of the hallways.
One of the most significant reform movements of the 1800s was the women's rights movement. In the 1800s, women lacked many of the legal rights that men had, leading some people to say that women were "second-class citizens."
"Second-class citizens"
In the 1800s, laws limited rights for women—especially married women. Once women got married, their husbands gained control of the couple's property. Women also lost the ability to sign contracts for themselves, making it hard to run businesses.
For several reasons, it was also difficult for women to leave bad marriages:
State laws listed only a few reasons why people could get divorced.
It was often hard to find an affordable lawyer to take a divorce case.
Some judges were unlikely to grant divorces.
A woman who got divorced usually lost custody of her children.
Because it was hard to get a divorce, women often had to stay in marriages where they were abused or mistreated.
In the early 1800s, most people thought that women's proper place was in the home and that they should be kept out of business and politics. But during the mid-1800s, the seeds of change began to grow. With their increasing education, some women also contributed to reform movements such as temperance, mental health reform, and the anti-slavery movement. Participating in these reform movements was difficult, since women were often excluded from reform meetings and activities. But women reformers often developed friendships with other activists, or people who worked for social change. These relationships later helped them organize conventions for women's rights. Many people believed that women's main responsibility was to raise children to be good citizens of the American republic. Some girls began to receive more education so they could grow up to be good mothers. When they reached adulthood, some of the newly educated women became teachers and worked in schools. But these women were often upset to find that they were paid less than men who did the same jobs.
How did important women's rights activists get their start?
One activist, Susan B. Anthony, was a teacher who became outraged by the unequal pay she received. Female teachers often made about half as much as male teachers.
Two other female activists, Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, met at the World Anti-Slavery Convention in 1840. They traveled to London for the convention, but they were not allowed to be full participants because they were women. Eight years later, they organized a conference seeking equal rights for women.
Did everyone at the convention sign?
No. Of the roughly 300 people at Seneca Falls, only 100 people signed the Declaration of Sentiments. Some people attended mainly as observers. For example, Amelia Bloomer watched from the balcony. Many of the ideas were new to her, and she was not ready to sign right away.
Bloomer's involvement blossoms
Soon, Bloomer became more involved in the movement and made her own contribution.
At that time, many women wore long, restrictive dresses. Bloomer edited a reform newspaper and used it to promote a new fashion trend: loose clothes for the lower body that became known as bloomers. Bloomers allowed women to move more freely and became a nationwide craze!
Members of the women's rights movement sometimes disagreed about what the movement's goals should be. The passage below describes the opinions of several important members of the movement.
Susan B. Anthony thought the movement should focus on just one goal. She believed that if women gained suffrage, or the right to vote, they could use their new power to change other unfair laws.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton also supported suffrage, but she believed the women's rights movement should pursue many goals at once. For example, she wanted to fight for women's rights to control property and to get divorced if their husbands behaved badly.
At first, Lucretia Mott worried that people would think women were "ridiculous" if they demanded the right to vote. She feared their opponents would then refuse to support all of the women's other goals, too. Later, Mott changed her mind and supported suffrage.
Who was Susan B. Anthony?
Susan B. Anthony traveled the country for decades, giving speeches and helping build many local women's rights groups. She was focused on gaining the right to vote.
Once, she even voted illegally, as a form of protest. She was put on trial and found guilty, but she refused to pay the fine.
Who was Elizabeth Cady Stanton?
Stanton was a leading writer of the women's movement. She didn't travel much because she had children at home, but she wrote many speeches for Anthony to deliver.
Stanton once wrote this about her partnership with Anthony: "I forged the thunderbolts, and she fired them." To forge something is to create it. What do you think Stanton meant by this sentence?
During the 1850s, national women's rights conventions were held almost every year. However, when the Civil War began in 1861, most women's rights activists paused their movement to contribute to the war effort. After the war, the women's rights movement began again, with many members demanding the right to vote.
Fighting a long battle
During the late 1800s and early 1900s, some states gave women the right to vote, but others did not. The women's rights movement continued to grow, and its members protested ever more forcefully.
Finally, on August 18, 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, guaranteeing women the right to vote nationwide. Of the 100 people who signed the Declaration of Sentiments in 1848, only one was still living when the amendment was passed.
In the following questions, you will learn about the lives of immigrants to the United States during the years before the Civil War. Immigrants are people who move to a new country.
Between the years 1840 and 1860, millions of immigrants came to the United States, mostly from Europe. The table below shows where those immigrants came from.
Did non-Europeans come to the United States during the 1800s?
Yes! Although Europe was the most common source of immigrants during this period, immigrants from other parts of the world also came to the United States.
For example, the discovery of gold in California in 1848 led to immigration from countries such as China, Japan, Chile, and what was then the Kingdom of Hawai'i.
Between the years 1840 and 1860, over 1.7 million Irish immigrants came to the United States. Many immigrants left Ireland because of the Great Irish Famine. A famine is an extreme shortage of food. Below are two sources that describe the Great Irish Famine. The first source is from a song written in the decades after the Great Irish Famine. The second source is adapted from a book written by a historian of Irish immigration. Read the passages.
A song written in the late 1800s
In 1848, I saw fathers, boys, and girls with rosy cheeks and silken curls all a-missing and starving for a mouthful of food to eat.
a-missing: dying
Poor Pat Must Emigrate, late 1800s.
Kerby Miller, historian
From the summer of 1845 through the early 1850s, every harvest of potatoes—practically the only food for most of Ireland's inhabitants—failed totally, resulting in perhaps a million deaths.
Kerby Miller, Emigrants and Exiles. Copyright 1985 by Oxford University Press.
What caused the Great Irish Famine?
The Great Irish Famine is also known as the Potato Famine. In the 1840s, potato crops across Europe were hit with a blight, or disease. This blight caused potato plants to rot before they could be harvested. Since potatoes were a cheap source of food, many poor Irish people depended on them to survive. Once potato crops failed, many Irish people starved to death.
Germans were the second most common immigrant group to come to the United States during the antebellum period. At the time, Germany was not one country. Instead, Germany was divided into dozens of independent states.
From rebels to immigrants
In the 1800s, most German states were ruled by princes or kings. In 1848, rebels tried to overthrow the governments in many of these states. German rebels believed that the German states should become republics with elected representatives. Many German rebels also wanted Germany to become one united country. Within a year, the German states had defeated these rebellions.
Many of the defeated rebels decided to come to the United States to avoid punishment. They were excited to move to a country that was already a republic. Many of them became leaders of German American communities. Because of their roles in the revolutions of 1848, these immigrants were called 48ers.
German and Irish immigrants had many different motivations for coming to the United States. Scholars use the terms push factors and pull factors to describe the motivations of immigrants. A push factor is a negative reason for leaving a country. A pull factor is a positive reason that encourages someone to come to a new country.
For example, the Great Irish Famine was a push factor, since the resulting starvation forced many people to leave Ireland. On the other hand, the possibility of earning money in the United States was a pull factor for many immigrants. The possibility of more money encouraged immigrants to move to a new country.
Why do immigrants come to the United States today?
Immigrants today move to the United States for many different reasons:
Some emigrate because of push factors such as a civil war or famine.
Others come to the United States to attend college or to work a new job.
What unites immigrants is that they come to the United States looking for a better life.
During the antebellum period, slavery was allowed in much of the United States. People who chose to come to the United States as immigrants were not enslaved. But slavery affected where immigrants to the United States chose to live and the type of work they could get. The map below shows the percentage of people who were immigrants in different states in 1860. It also labels the Southern slave states, which allowed slavery, and the Northern free states, which banned slavery.
Overall, the populations of free states such as Wisconsin and Massachusetts had higher percentages of immigrants. One reason that immigrant workers moved to these states is that they did not want to compete against enslaved people, since enslaved people were forced to work without being paid.
Did any immigrants move to the slave states?
Yes. Some immigrants did move to slave states in the South. Here are some examples:
Irish immigrants moved to port cities, such as New Orleans in Louisiana, where they could find work.
Some German immigrants moved to Texas, where they started farms.
German immigrants moved to St. Louis, Missouri because the growing city on the Mississippi River had many jobs.
Some immigrants to the Southern states became slaveholders. Other immigrants in the Southern states opposed slavery.
Most immigrants moved to Northern states. Once they were there, many immigrants hoped that they would be able to move west and start a farm, since they had often been farmers in their old country. However, most immigrants ended up staying and working in cities such as New York and Philadelphia. The passage below is adapted from a letter written by Irish immigrant Margaret McCarthy to her father in Ireland in 1850.
My father, I must only say that this is a good place and a good country. But there is one thing that's ruining this place, especially the towns and cities where the flow of immigration is highest. The immigrants do not have enough money to take them to the interior of the country, which forces them to remain here in New York City and like places. This high number of immigrants in the cities causes less demand for labor and also lower wages.
interior of the country: western part of the United States
wages: money paid for a job
What was it like for immigrants to move to cities?
During the 1800s, cities such as New York, Philadelphia, and Boston were growing quickly. Still, American cities of the 1800s were small by today's standards. In 1860, the biggest city in the United States was New York City. Back then, it had about 814,000 people. In 2010, New York City had a population of almost 8.2 million people. That's 10 times as big!
Cities offered immigrants opportunities for new jobs and chances to meet new people. However, cities during this time period were unhealthy from disease and dangerous from crime. Most European immigrants in the 1800s came from rural areas, so they were not used to living in a city. They often wrote to relatives about how scary or exciting living in a city was for them.
The chart below lists the occupations of Irish and German immigrants who came to the United States between the years 1840 and 1850. The three most common kinds of occupations were farmers, skilled workers, and unskilled workers. A skilled worker was someone who had been trained in a specific trade, such as baking or shoemaking. An unskilled worker was not trained in a specific job and often worked hard physical jobs, such as digging ditches or cleaning streets.
Between 1840 and 1850, most Irish immigrants were unskilled workers, while over half of German immigrants were farmers. In general, farmers and skilled workers were able to make more money than unskilled workers. So, based on the table, a historian could predict that Irish immigrants tended to be poorer than German immigrants.
What was life like for an unskilled immigrant worker?
Unskilled Irish workers often could only find low-paying jobs. Often these jobs were dangerous. For example, many Irish immigrants worked as canal diggers, which meant they dug new waterways for ships. In the building of one canal in New Orleans, at least 8,000 immigrant workers died from disease and accidents!
Along with experiencing economic hardships, many immigrants faced hostile attitudes from other Americans. During the antebellum period, groups of anti-immigrant Americans called nativists argued that the United States should make it harder for immigrants to become citizens.
The cartoon below from the 1850s shows some of the stereotypes about German and Irish immigrants. Stereotypes are false or unfair beliefs about a group of people. In the cartoon, Irish and German immigrants are accused of encouraging violence, drinking too much beer and liquor, and cheating to win elections.
The cartoon was probably drawn by a nativist who wanted the United States to let fewer Irish and German people become citizens.
An anti-immigrant political party
Nativists formed a political party called the American Party in the 1840s and 1850s. The American Party claimed to protect the rights of people born in the United States and believed many negative stereotypes about immigrants. Members of the American Party were better known as Know-Nothings. Meetings of the American Party were supposed to be secret, and a member of the party who was asked about the meeting was supposed to say "I know nothing."
The Know-Nothings called people born in the United States "Native Americans."
Although the Know-Nothing Party won many state and local elections in the 1850s, it didn't have a clear opinion on slavery. As slavery became a larger issue in American politics, the Know-Nothing Party became less popular. By 1860, the party had disappeared.
Many nativists disliked immigrants partly for their religion. Most nativists and immigrants were Christians, but they were different types of Christians. Most nativists were Protestants, while many immigrants were Catholics.
The Catholic Church is based in Rome, and nativists worried that immigrants would be loyal to religious leaders in Rome instead of the United States.
In 1844, a series of riots broke out in the city of Philadelphia. Protestant nativists and Catholic immigrants fought during these riots, in which over 20 people died.
What caused the Philadelphia Riots?
In 1844, a rumor started that Catholic immigrants were going to try to stop schools from using the Protestant version of the Bible. In reaction to the rumor, mobs of nativists started attacking Catholic neighborhoods and churches. Irish immigrants fought back. Riots occurred again and again throughout the year. Because of the rumor, these riots are known as the Philadelphia Bible Riots.
Despite many hardships, immigrants often succeeded in America. The events below are adapted from the autobiography of George Kulzer, a German immigrant who moved to Minnesota to farm. Kulzer's experience was similar to that of many immigrants.
As German and Irish immigrants adapted to their new homes, they also found ways to hold on to their traditions from their old homes.
Celebrating German and Irish America
Today, millions of Americans are descended from Irish and German immigrants who came in the 1800s. Those Irish and German immigrants brought along traditions and customs that are still around today. For example, some of the holidays celebrated in Germany and Ireland are also celebrated in the United States.
Some immigrants could get help from family members. But others did not know anyone. So, they found other ways to face the challenges of living in a new country.
Building Jewish-American communities
Many German immigrants in the 1800s were Jewish. Although there had been some Jewish communities in the United States since colonial times, these German immigrants soon made up a majority of the Jewish population.
Jewish immigrants started new synagogues, or places of worship. To help spread education, they also started free schools for students to learn about Judaism. Like other immigrant groups, Jewish immigrants also started aid societies, which gave money and provided advice for immigrants moving to the United States.
As the numbers of immigrants increased, immigrant voters played an important role in elections in the 1850s. During this time, Americans were divided on many issues, including whether slavery should be allowed in new territories. When deciding how to vote, voters in the elections of the 1850s had three main political parties to choose from:
The Republican Party argued that the spread of slavery needed to be stopped. Some Republican leaders also believed that it should take longer for immigrants to become citizens.
The Democratic Party was often proslavery, but was also often supportive of protecting the rights of Catholics and immigrants. For example, Democrats wanted to keep it easy for immigrants to become citizens. They also supported allowing Catholics to start their own schools.
The Know-Nothing Party was a nativist party that argued that Catholics and immigrants were a threat to the United States. Know-Nothings wanted to make it extremely difficult for immigrants to become citizens.
Political debates of the 1850s, especially over slavery, led to the American Civil War (1861–1865). Immigrants played an important part in the Civil War. Over 350,000 Irish American and German American immigrants fought in the United States Army during the war.
How did German and Irish immigrants feel about the Civil War?
By the time of the Civil War, there were millions of immigrants in the United States. These immigrants had many different reactions to the war:
Some immigrants saw the war as a chance to end slavery once and for all. For example, many German American leaders demanded that the United States government declare an end to slavery.
Many immigrants resented that they had to fight and die in a war that they thought would only help enslaved people. For example, many Irish American people rioted in 1863 to resist having to join the army.
Many immigrants saw the war as a chance to prove that they could be good citizens.
Immigrants joined both the Union and the Confederate armies for this reason.
During the antebellum period, millions of immigrants from Ireland and Germany came to the United States. Push factors such as the Great Irish Famine or failed revolutions forced many people to flee their homelands in Europe. Pull factors such as the chance to own a farm or make more money encouraged immigrants to come to the United States.While the most common occupation for German immigrants was farming, most Irish immigrants were unskilled workers, which meant they usually could only find low-paying jobs. As a result, most Irish immigrants lived in cities, although some did start their own farms.
A nation of immigrants
Like immigrants before and after them, German and Irish immigrants faced challenges and opportunities in their new home of the United States.
A famous historian named Oscar Handlin once wrote, "I thought to write a history of the immigrants in America. Then I discovered that the immigrants were American history." Handlin meant that the stories of different immigrant groups make up an important part of the history of the United States.
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