Chapter Study Outline

  • I. Rational religion
    • A. The concept of mission in the American character
    • B. The development of Deism
      • 1. Roots in rationalism and Calvinism
      • 2. Nature of the beliefs
    • C. The development of Unitarianism
      • 1. Nature of the beliefs
      • 2. Role of William Ellery Channing
      • 3. Creation of American Unitarian Association
    • D. The development of Universalism
      • 1. Role of John Murray
      • 2. Nature of the beliefs
      • 3. Comparison with Unitarianism
  • II. The Second Great Awakening
    • A. Origins of the revival movement
      • 1. Fears of secularism
    • B. The frontier phase of revivalism
      • 1. Frontier reception of the revivals
      • 2. Emergence of the Presbyterians
      • 3. Role of the Baptists
      • 4. The Methodists’ impact
      • 5. Appeal to African Americans
      • 6. Spread of revivals on the frontier
      • 7. The camp meeting
      • 8. Women and revivalism
    • C. Revivals in upstate New York
      • 1. Role of Charles Grandison Finney
      • 2. Connection to Oberlin College
    • D. The rise of the Mormons
      • 1. Role of Joseph Smith
      • 2. Characteristics of the church and its members
      • 3. Persecution of Mormons
      • 4. Role of Brigham Young
      • 5. The move to Utah
  • III. Romanticism in America
    • A. Nature of the Romantic revolt
    • B. Transcendentalism as a Romantic expression
      • 1. Nature of transcendentalism
      • 2. The Transcendental Club and its members
      • 3. Ralph Waldo Emerson
      • 4. Henry David Thoreau
      • 5. The impact of transcendentalism
  • IV. The flowering of American literature
    • A. Nathaniel Hawthorne
    • B. Emily Dickinson
    • C. Edgar Allan Poe
    • D. Herman Melville
    • E. Walt Whitman
    • F. The popular press
      • 1. Impact of advances in printing technology
      • 2. Proliferation of newspapers
  • V. Education
    • A. Level of literacy
    • B. Early public schools
      • 1. Rising demand for public schools in the 1830s
      • 2. Role of Horace Mann in Massachusetts
      • 3. Leadership of North Carolina in the South
      • 4. Limited progress before the Civil War
    • C. Developments in higher education
      • 1. Post-Revolutionary surge in college formation
      • 2. State vs. religious colleges
        • a. Conflicts over funding and curriculum
      • 3. Slow growth of technical education
    • D. Education for women
  • VI. Movements for reform
    • A. Roots of reform
    • B. Temperance
      • 1. Heavy consumption of alcohol in the United States
      • 2. Arguments for temperance
      • 3. Early efforts at reform
      • 4. The American Temperance Union
    • C. Prison reform
      • 1. Growth of public institutions to treat social ills
      • 2. Prevention and rehabilitation versus punishment for crime
      • 3. Auburn prison system
    • D. Reform in treatment of the insane
      • 1. Early state institutions for the insane
      • 2. Work of Dorothea Dix
    • E. Crusade for women’s rights
      • 1. Catharine Beecher and the cult of domesticity
      • 2. Development of domestic role for women
      • 3. Subordinate status of women in the antebellum period
      • 4. Seneca Falls (1848) and subsequent conventions
      • 5. Limited successes
      • 6. Limited job opportunities for educated women
    • F. Utopian communities
      • 1. Proliferation of utopian communities
      • 2. Nature of the Shaker communities
      • 3. Development and contributions of the Oneida Community
      • 4. Robert Owen and New Harmony
      • 5. The importance of Brook Farm
      • 6. The decline of utopia
  • VII. Anti-slavery movements
    • A. Early opposition to slavery
      • 1. Establishment of the American Colonization Society
      • 2. Establishment of Liberia
    • B. The movement toward abolition
      • 1. William Lloyd Garrison’s call for immediate emancipation
      • 2. The Liberator
    • C. Creation of the American Anti-Slavery Society
    • D. The anti-slavery movement split
      • 1. Garrison and the radical wing demand comprehensive societal reforms
      • 2. Others want to focus only on slavery
      • 3. Showdown in 1840 over women’s rights
      • 4. Garrisonians win the right of women to participate
      • 5. New Yorkers group and Liberty party break away
    • E. Black anti-slavery advocates
      • 1. 
Conflicts over the right of blacks to participate in anti-slavery activities
      • 2. Former slaves who became public speakers
        • a. Frederick Douglass
        • b. Sojourner Truth
  • VIII. Reactions to abolitionism
    • A. Pro-slavery mob kills Elijah Lovejoy
    • B. The “gag rule“ in Congress
    • C. Development of the Liberty party (1840)
    • D. Defenses of slavery
      • 1. Biblical arguments
      • 2. Inferiority of blacks
      • 3. Practical considerations
      • 4. George Fitzhugh’s comparison to northern wage slavery