America: A Narrative History, chapter 13 p. 401-407 – Flashcards
Flashcard maker : Malcolm Bright
Where did the urge for social reform come from?
the widespread sense of spiritual zeal and moral mission which drew upon the growing faith in human perfectibility promoted by both revivalists and Romantic idealists (e.g. the transcendentalists)
What issues did reformers tackle?
observance of the Sabbath, dueling, crime and punishment, prison and mental health reform, the hours and conditions of work, poverty, vice, care of the disabled, pacifism, foreign missions, temperance, women’s rights, and abolition of slavery
True or False: social and economic changes helped supply many of the reformers, most of whom were women
True
What were the social and economic changes that allowed a greater participation of women in social reform?
rise of an urban middle class offered affluent women more time to devote, because they could hire cooks and maids (often Irish immigrants)
True or False: Many women joined churches and charitable organizations, most of which were led by men.
True
True or False: Some reforms proposed legislative remedies for social ill, while other stressed personal conversion or private philanthropy
True
True or False: Social reformers were not a large group in the 2nd quarter of the 19th century
False
What was the most wide-spread of all the reform movements?
Temperance
What did William Cobbett note in 1819?
one could “go into hardly any man’s house without being asked to drink wine or spirits, even in the morning”
What was the American Society for the Promotion of Temperance?
A society formed by a group of Boston ministers in 1826 which organized lectures, press campaigns, an essay contest, and the formation of local and state societies in opposition of alcohol
True or False: the Temperance societies often asked people to take a pledge and sign with a T for total abstinence, giving rise to a new term “teetotaler”
True
True or False: the American Society for the Promotion of Temperance organized a national convention in 1833 in Philadelphia, and formed the American Temperance Union
True
What did the Temperance Union do at its spring convention in 1836?
It called for abstinence from all alcoholic beverages
What did the Temperance Union’s decision to ban all alcohol do?
it caused moderates to abstain from the temperance movement
What did the temperance absolutists want?
no compromise with “Demon Rum” and resolved that liquor was evil and ought to be prohibited by law
what did the Romantic impulse often include?
the liberal belief that people are innately good and capable of improvement
True or False: the optimistic view of human nature brought about major changes in the treatment of prisoners, the disabled, and dependent children
True
What were asylums?
public institutions dedicated to the treatment and cure of social ills
Why were asylums founded?
an established theory predicted that if the needy and the deviant were removed from society they could be made whole again
What were penitentiaries?
a place where the guilty experienced penitence and underwent rehabilitation, not just punishment
What was the Auburn Penitentiary?
A penitentiary opened in NY in 1816 whose prisoners had separate cells, gathering only for meals and group labor. Discipline was severe, and prisoners were not allowed to talk to each other, but they were reasonably secure from abuse by their fellow prisoners.
True or False: advocates of the Auburn penitentiary system argued that it had a beneficial effect on the prisoners and saved money since the workshops supplied prison needs and produced goods for sale at a profit
True
How may penitentiaries like Auburn existed by 1840?
twelve
What were typical conditions for the insane before 1800?
few hospitals provided care for the mentally ill, who were usually confined at home with hired keepers or in jails or almshouses.
True or False: after 1815, asylums began to emerge that separated the mentally ill from the criminal
True
Who was the most important figure in heightening public awareness of the plight of the mentally ill?
Dorothy Lynde Dix
What caused Dix to conduct a 2 year investigation of jails and almshouses in Massachusetts?
When called to lead a Sunday-school class at the East Cambridge House of Correction in 1841 she found a roomful of insane people who were completely neglected, without any heat although it was cold.
What did Dix report to the state legislature of Mass. in 1843 about the state of insane people in the state?
She said that the insane were brutally mistreated and neglected
True or False: the managing asylums listened to Dix’s accusations
False
True or False: Dix could not gain the support of leading reformers
False
True or False: By 1860 Dix had persuaded 20 states to heed her advice and transform social attitudes toward mental illness
True
True or False: Many middle-class women devoted themselves to improving the quality of life in American society, but some argued that women should first focus on improving domestic life
True
Who was Catharine Beecher?
a leader in the education movement and founder of women’s schools in Connecticut and Ohio, who published “A Treatise on Domestic Economy” (1841)
What was “A Treatise on Domestic Economy”?
it became a best-selling guide proscribing the domestic sphere for women and the leading handbook for the cult of domesticity
What did Beecher argue?
while Beecher upheld high standards in women’s education, she accepted the prevailing view that the “women’s sphere” was at home, and argued that young women should be trained in the domestic arts
True or False: In earlier agrarian societies, gender based functions were closely tied to the household and often overlapped
True
What happened as the more complex industrial economy of the 19th century matured?
economic production came to be increasingly separated from the home, and the home in turn became a refuge from the outside would
What did this new idea of the home as a refuge from the outside world foster?
separate and distinct functions for men and women-the cult of domesticity that idealized a woman’s moral role in civilizing husband and family
True or False: the official status of women during the first half of the 19th century remained much as it had been in the colonial era
True
What things were prohibited or limited to women?
the ministry, higher education (limited); women could not serve on juries, vote, and often had no control over their property, or children. Women also could not make a will, sign a contract, or bring suit in court without their husbands permission
True or False: Women’s legal status in the first half of the 19th century was like that of a minor, a slave, or a free black
True
When did the organized movement for women’s rights emerge?
1840 when the anti-slavery movement split over the question of women’s right to participate
Who were the two prominent moral reformers and advocates of women’s rights who organized a convention at Seneca Falls in 1848?
Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton
What was the Seneca Falls Convention?
It was the first convention to discuss the social, civil and religious condition and rights of women; it issued the Declaration of Sentiments proclaiming the self-evident truth that “all men and women are created equal”
Where is this excerpt from? “[all laws that placed women] in a position inferior to that of men, are contrary to the great precept of nature, and therefore of no force or authority”
The Declaration of Sentiments issued during the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848
How was the Declaration of Sentiments received among the appx. 1000 convention delegates?
Most thought the language was too strong, and only 1/3 signed the radical document
True or False: The Seneca Falls gathering represented an important first step in the evolving campaign for women’s rights
True
What did the leaders of the women’s rights movements do from 1850 until the Civil War?
hold annual conventions, deliver lectures, and circulate petitions
what did the women’s rights movement struggle from?
meager funds and opposition from anti-feminist women and men
What did the women’s rights movement’s success come from?
The undaunted women, like Susan B. Anthony, who refused to be cowed by the odds against them
Who was Susan B. Anthony?
a women already actively involved in temperance and anti-slavery groups who joined the women’s rights crusade in 1850. Unlike Stanton and Mott, she was unmarried and able to devote most of her attention to the women’s crusade
Elizabeth Stanton forged the thunderbolts of the women’s campaign….
…and Susan B Anthony hurled them
What did Both Stanton and Anthony do after the Civil war?
focus on demands for women’s suffrage
True or False: Many feminists, such as Mott and Stanton, did not have supportive husbands
False
What did the feminist movement recruit?
prominent male champions, such as Emerson, Walt Whitman, and Garrison
True or False: during the 1st half of the 19th century, women did not gain the vote but did make some legal gains
True
True or False: Mississippi became the first state to grant married women control over their property; by the 1860s, eleven more states had such laws
True
What were the only jobs open to educated women in the first half of the 19th century?
nursing and teaching
Why were nursing and teaching the only jobs available to women?
They extended the domestic roles of health care and nurture to the outside world
True or False: nursing and teaching jobs for women brought relatively lower status and pay than man’s work
True
True or False: More than a hundred utopian communities sprang up between 1800 and 1900
True
What were the Shakers?
A utopian community, (the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing) that was started by Ann Lee (Mother Ann Lee)
What did Shakers believe?
Ann Lee believed religious fervor to be a sign of inspiration from the Holy Ghost and she and her followers had strange fits in which they saw visions and prophesied; these fits turned into ritual dances (hence the name shakers). They believed that God was a dual personality: Christ was the masculine side and Mother Ann was the feminine side. Mother Ann preached celibacy to prepare Shakers for perfection in heaven
What were the Shaker communities know for?
All property was held in common and the Shaker farms were among the nation’s leading sources of garden seed and medicinal herbs, and many of their manufactures were prized for their simple beauty
True or False: The first Shaker community in New Lebanon, NY spread into New England, Ohio and Kentucky with about 20 groups by 1830
True
Who founded the Oneida Community?
John Humphrey Noyes, who was converted at one of Finney’s revivals and entered the ministry but was kicked out when he declared that perfectionism came with true conversion
Ten years after Noyes gather a group of “perfectionists” around his home in Vermont, what did Noyes proclaim?
The doctrine of “complex marriage” where every man was married to every women and vice versa
True or False:After Noyes was arrested because of his complex marriage practices, he fled to NY and established the Oneida community in 1848
True
What was the most celebrated of all the utopian communities?
The Brook Farm in Mass. because it grew out of the Transcendental movement
What was Brook Farm?
America’s first secular utopian community; conceived by its founder George Ripley (Unitarian minister and Transcendentalist) as a kind of think tank, combining high thinking and plain living
What was Brook Farm like?
it attracted excited attention and hundreds of visitors; its residents shared tasks and organized functions
How did Brook Farm survive?
It had an excellent community school that drew tuition-paying students from outside
Why did the Brook Farm experiment fail?
Its main building burned down in 1846
True or False: Utopian communities, with few exceptions, quickly ran out of steam and these communal social experiments performed in relative isolation had little effect on the outside world
True
What target for reform would eventually take precedence over all others?
Slavery
