Chapter 13 - New Movements in America

Section One - America's Spiritual Awakening

The American Romantics

• Romantic Movement - Each person brings a unique view to the world
• Nathaniel Hawthorne - wrote the Scarlet Letter, a novel about strict Puritan life in the 1600s
• Edgar Allan Poe - known for haunting short stories and poems such as "The Tell Tale Heart"

Section Two - Immigrants and Cities

Waves of Immigrants

• In the mid-1800s, large number of immigrants come to the United States from Europe
• Most were German or Irish
• Irish leave to escape the Potato Famine, which rotted the potatoes and resulted in starvation
• Irish moved to cities and worked in factories, had little money
• Some Irish take jobs in railroad construction
• Germans arrive with money and tended to start farms in the mid-west (Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin)

The Nativist Response

• Native born Americans fear losing jobs to immigrants who work work for less
• Nativists - people who did not trust immigrants
• Know-Nothing Party - Secret political party aimed at keeping Catholics and immigrants out of public office

The Growth of Cities

• Industrial Revoltuion led to many new jobs in cities were factories were located
• Cities in Northeast and Middle Atlantic states grew the most
• Middle Class - people who had enough money to be able to live comfortably and go shooping, clubs, theaters, and bowling

Urban Problems

• Cities were crowded (most people walked)
• Poor and wealthy live close, causing jealosy issues
• Lack of safe housing and public services (garbage and waste issues)
• Tenements - dirty, overcrowded buildings housing poor of a city
• Most cities had no police forces, so crime was an issue
• Fires - most cities had poorly equipped and trained volunteer fire departments

Section Three - Reforming Society

Prison Reform

• Dorothea Dix - tried to fix terrible prison conditions, especially of mentally ill
• Children often treated the same as adults
• Call for prisoners to be educated or trained in a skill

Campaigning against Alcohol Abuse

• During 1830, average American drank seven gallons of alcohol per year - huge problem
• Reformers felt alcohol caused family problems, poverty, and criminal behavior
• Temperance Movement - pushed for peopl to stop drinking hard liquor and limit drinking of beer and wine to small amounts
• 13 states ban the sale of alcohol by 1855

Education in America

• Poor public education, especially in immigrant areas, was an issue
• Kids were working on farms in the country and factories in the city and not going to school
• Teachers were generally untrained young men teaching in one room schoolhouses to children of all ages
• Rich could afford private schools or tutors, poor went to public school.
• More boys went than girls

Common School Movement

• Horace Mann - looked for teachers to get better pay in order to recruit better people, start teacher training, and make the school year longer

African-American Schools

• Blacks went to separate schools from whites - rarely as good
• Rarely allowed to go to college, so some colleges for blacks only open in the 1840s
• Free blacks did have chances to go to school in the north and midwest, but not in the south

Section Four - The Movement to End Slavery

Abolition

• Aboltion - the idea to completely end slavery
• Emancipation - to free the slaves
• Most Americans did not believe in aboliton, but those who did protested loudly
• Even most abolitionist do not feel blacks should be equal to whites - just free from slavery
• Liberia - Country in Africa started to send former slaves - 12,000 African-Americans settle there

Spreading the Abolitionist Message

• Abolitions went on speaking tours, wrote newspaper articles and pamphlets
• William Lloyd Garrison - Created The Liberator, an abolitionist newspaper and started the American Anti-Slavery Society

African Americans Fight against Slavery

• Frederick Douglass - escaped slave wholectured in Europe and US about evils of slavery and created pro-abolition newspaper called the North Star

The Underground Railroad

• Underground Railroad - by the 1830s, a loosely organized group created to help slaves escape
• Hid escaped slaves and moved them from station to station at night
• Hoped to get slaves into Canada, where slavery was illegal
• Harriet Tubman - escaped slave who returned to south 19 times, helping 300 others escape. Reward for her capture was $40,000
• About 40,000 slaves escaped on the Underground Railroad

Opposition to Abolition

• Many northerners fear blacks will come north and take jobs from whites
• Federal government passes a Gag Rule (1836 - 1844) - no talking about abolition. This is unconstitutional
• White southerners feel slavery is a necessity for the southern economy

Section Five - Women's Rights

Influence of Abolition

• Many female abolitionists join push for right to speak in public about slavery
• Sojouner Truth - 6 foot tall former slave who spoke about aboliton and women's rights

Women's Rights

• Women were better educated by mid1850's
• Women not permitted to vote or own property if married

Seneca Falls Convention

• Elizabeth Cady Stanton/Lucretia Mott - Organize the Seneca Falls Convention in New York
• Starts the women's right movement in the US
• 240 people attended, including Frederick Douglass
• Declaration of Sentiments - based od the Dec of Independence, this doicument details beliefs of social injustice toward women

The Continuing Struggle

• Susan B. Anthony - responsible for turning women's rights into a political movement. Believe men and women should get equal pay and women should be allowed in traditional male jobs like law
• 1860 - NY allows married women to keep wages and own land if married