The Reform Movements of the 1800s were inspired by religious changes in American’s moral values. The Second Great Awakening was a religious movement that inspired Americans from the 1800s-1840s. This religious movement encouraged Americans to work to improve society. Many people shared their belief that good deeds could help them be saved and go to heaven. As Americans attended revivals, or religious meetings that shared ideas about changing society swept the nation and fed into both the Women's Rights movement as well as the push for Abolition of slavery (abolish).

Americans in the early 1800s believed they could make a difference in society. The United States was struggling with slavery, abuse in prisons, and the efforts to follow the dream set forth by the Constitution that all people “are created equal”: Reformers began to advocate (encourage change) and turn plans into action. A closely related but secular movement was gaining steam around the same time. Transcendentalism was an idea where people believed they could "transcend," or rise above logical thinking to reach true understanding of the world. The idea of transcendentalism meant that humans could rise above their biological station in life and improve humanity, and it inspired literature such as the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau and Walt Whitman and artwork such as those produced at the Hudson River Schools. Thoreau wrote a book on the meaning of life called, “Walden: Life in the Woods”, that inspired many others to become closer to nature. His belief in questioning society and government even led him to be jailed when he refused to pay taxes. His act of civil disobedience inspired many others.

The period of religious revivals, transcendentalism and reform movements culminated in the beginning of several reform movements that would continue to the Civil War and set the background for modern reform movements that are still being waged today. Continue reading to find more information about the specific reform movements of the early 18th century.

Abolition

The best-known of the social reform movements of the antebellum era may be abolition - the effort to end slavery in the United States. There had been abolitionists since colonial days, notably the Quakers, and a vocal minority had tried to abolish slavery with the founding of the nation. But slavery itself had changed with the invention of the cotton gin and the fabulous wealth earned from 'King Cotton.' While Southerners became more committed to maintaining and even expanding the peculiar institution, many Northerners began to see slavery as a moral evil because of what was called the Second Great Awakening.

There were many opponents to slavery in the 1800s, both white and black. All Northern states had outlawed slavery by 1807. Many runaway slaves and free blacks opposed slavery and helped bring it into the public consciousness, such as John Brown, Harriet Beecher Stowe, William Loyd Garisson and Frederick Douglass. With support for abolition growing, many people worked together to help enslaved people escape into free territory during this time, it was called the Underground Railroad and it was lead by many conductors throughout the South, but none more famous than Harriet Tubman.

Goals: to ABOLISH: get rid of slavery and discrimination

Leaders:

- Fredrick Douglass - bought his own freedom to go on to speak out against slavery

- Harriet Tubman: escaped slavery, helped thousands of slaves go to freedom, and raided southern plantations during the Civil War

- Sojourner Truth

- William Lloyd Garrison

- Grimke Sisters

- Harriet Beecher Stowe

- John Brown

Achievements:

- Formation of "The Society for the Abolishment of slavery" in england

- Second Great Awakening

- Sparking a Civil War

- Underground Railroad

The abolition movement continues today. It seeks to abolish or radically change the institutional biases or preserved racism that remain in our political systems (institutional racism). Abolition - from it's anti-slavery advocacy days to more modern efforts such as the Civil Rights movement or the Black Lives Matter movement - has always been controversial, but these issues define our history.

Women's Rights

Suffrage is the right to vote, and it was the crown jewel of the Women's Rights movement of the late 1800s and early 1900s. The 1800's were a pinnacle time for women. Changing social conditions for women during the early 1800's, combined with the idea of equality, led to the birth of the woman's suffrage movement. For example, women started to receive more education and to take part in reform movements like abolition, which involved them in politics. During the 1800s, however, when certain people, including women, stood up and voiced their opinions about the abuses and hardships slaves have to live with their whole lives. One influential former-slave named Sojourner Truth would become a leading female voice against slavery.

As a result of their work in abolition, women started to ask why they were not also allowed to vote. The National Women's Suffrage Association was started in 1869 by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, and eventually organized the Seneca Convention in the state of New York. At this convention women met to discuss how they could advocate for their rights alongside men. There were other interests of the women's suffrage movement such as equal pay and legal equality. Suffrage quickly became the chief goal of the women's rights movement. Leaders of the movement believed that if women had the vote, they could use it to gain other rights.

Goals: women's suffrage and equal rights

Leaders:

- Sojourner Truth's electrifying speeches, such as "Ain't I a Woman?" - 1851

- Susan B Anthony

- Ida B Wells

Achievements:

- Equal pay met in 1963

- Declaration of Sentiments, Grievances and Resolutions

- Seneca Falls Convention

- Washington, D.C. Women's March

- Women suffrage law

- NWLC (national womens law center)

- ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union)

Education

You are in school now because the government requires you to be, that wasn’t the case in early America. The rise of public schools became popular in the North in the early 1800s (19th century). In early America, few schools existed outside of Massachusetts; children were taught at home by parents or tutors or were sent away to a boarding school. By the 1830s, a growing number of concerned Americans began to advocate at all levels for free public education, at least for white boys. In 1837, Horace Mann took control of the new Massachusetts Board of Education and pursued free, equal, non-religious schooling for all social classes, provided by trained, well-paid, professional teachers. His reforms set the standard for public education in the United States, and by 1870, all states had at least some free elementary schools. College opportunities were also expanding beyond the few, exclusive, religious-based universities of the colonial era. By 1840, there were more than 70 institutions of higher education, offering both theological (study of the Bible) as well as practical training.

Goals:

- Make school essential

- Raise school funds

- Lengthen school year

- Create schools for African Americans and disabled students

Leaders:

- Horace Mann (Father of American Public Schools)

- William Seward

- Dorothea Dix

- William McGuffrey

Achievements:

- Mann: Lengthened school year to 6 months, improves curriculum, created local taxes for schools and teacher training

- Dix: Private schools for girls and night classes for poor people and farmers

Prisons and Asylums (care for mentally disabled)

Early America had very few prisons. If you were caught stealing in the early 1700s, you would have been publicly whipped and, if you kept up the habit, hanged. Reformers, influenced by the ideals of transcendentalism, believed there had to be a better way to rehabilitate criminals. Many early experiments in prison reforms failed, but some lasting reforms began in the 1830s, including literacy programs, prison libraries, and less physical punishment such as whipping. In 1843, Dorothea Dix (later known for her work establishing the nursing corps in the Civil War), told the Massachusetts legislature that the mentally ill were kept ''in cages, closets, cellars, stalls, pens! Chained, naked, beaten with rods, and lashed into obedience!'' Dix and other reformers helped in the creation of public institutions dedicated to the treatment of mental illness. Though their methods might be considered downright scary by modern standards, these asylums were taking steps to understand mental illness and treat the insane with dignity.

Goals:

- separate mentally ill prison

- more comfortable living spaces

Leaders:

- Dorothea Lynde Dix(sought to create different mentally ill prisons with higher standards)

Achievements:

- Separate mentally ill prisons

- Improved standards