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Lesson 18 An Era of Reform
Lesson 18 An Era of Reform
In 1787, "in Order to form a more perfect Union, " a group of political
leaders wrote the Constitution of the United States. Some 50 years
later, however, some people believed that the Union was still far from
perfect. Most of them were not political leaders. Instead, they were
everyday Americans—men and women, black and white, ministers and
teachers.
From the 1830s through the 1850s, these reformers tried to improve
American society in many ways. Some of their efforts met with great
resistance. One of the most controversial issues was the struggle to
end slavery. Many Northerners, as well as many white Southerners,
thought slavery was morally wrong. However, the South's economy
depended on slave labor. Over time, that dependence grew.
In this unit, you will learn about the movement to end slavery and
about other attempts at reform. You will also learn about Northern and
Southern society, including differences in the lives of free African
Americans and slaves. Finally, you will learn about the economies of the
North and South and why they made the end of slavery so difficult to
achieve.
Truth heard one speaker after another explain that women didn't need
more rights because they weren't smart or strong enough to do much
besides raise children. Women, they argued, needed help from men.
One man summed it up by saying, “Women are weak.”
Truth had heard enough. She rose slowly to her feet and walked to the
pulpit. The room grew quiet as everyone waited for her to speak.
“That man over there says that women need to be helped into
carriages, and lifted over ditches, and have the best place everywhere,”
she began. “Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles,
or gives me any best place!”
Her voice rose to a thunderous pitch. “And ain't I a woman? Look at me!
Look at my arm! I have plowed and planted, and gathered into barns,
and no man could head [outdo] me. And ain't I a woman? I could work
as much and eat as much as a man—when I could get it— and bear the
lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and
seen them most all sold into slavery, and when I cried out with my
mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me. And ain't I a woman?”
When she finished, people applauded. Some cried. One witness said,
“She had taken us up in her strong arms and carried us safely.”
It was fitting that the meeting attended by Sojourner Truth took place
Like the Great Awakening during the 1730s and 1740s, this religious
revival appealed to people's emotions. But the Second Great Awakening
offered something new. In the past, most Christian ministers had said
that God had already decided who would be saved. Now many
preachers said everyone could gain forgiveness for their sins. Many of
them taught that doing good works could help them to be saved.
One day in 1841, a Boston woman named Dorothea Dix agreed to teach
Dix was horrified to see that many prisoners were bound in chains and
locked in cages. Children accused of minor thefts were jailed with adult
criminals. Were conditions this bad everywhere?
Dix devoted herself to finding out the answer to her question. She
visited hundreds of jails and prisons throughout Massachusetts. She
also visited debtors' prisons, or jails for people who owed money. Most
of the thousands of Americans in debtors' prisons owed less than 20
dollars. While they were locked up, they could not earn money to repay
their debts. As a result, they remained imprisoned for years.
Treatment of the Mentally Ill What shocked Dix most of all was the
way mentally ill people were treated. Most were locked in dirty,
crowded prison cells. If they misbehaved, they were whipped.
Dix and other reformers believed that the mentally ill needed treatment
and care, not punishment. Massachusetts had one private asylum, or
hospital for the mentally ill. Only the wealthy could afford to send a
family member there. Even so, the asylum was filled to overflowing.
Dix visited prisons in other states as well. After she prepared reports
demanding humane treatment for the mentally ill, those states also
created special mental hospitals.
Dix continued campaigning for prison reform for the rest of her life. By
the time she died in 1887, state governments no longer put debtors in
prison. Most states had created special justice systems for children in
trouble. Many had outlawed cruel punishments, such as branding
people with hot irons. Dix had shown that reformers could lead society
to make significant changes.
A second reform movement that won support in the 1800s was the
effort to make education available to more children. The man who
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would become known as “the father of American public schools,”
Horace Mann, led this movement.
In the cities, some poor children stole, destroyed property, and set
fires. Reformers believed that education would help these children
escape poverty and become good citizens. Influenced by the need for
education in its big cities, New York set up public elementary schools in
every town as early as the 1820s.
But states still did not offer public education to everyone. Most high
schools and colleges did not admit girls. States as far north as Illinois
passed laws to keep African Americans out of public schools. When
towns did allow blacks to attend school, most made them go to
separate schools that received less money. In the South, few girls and
no African Americans could attend public schools.
Education for girls and women did make some progress. In 1837,
Oberlin College in Ohio became the first college to admit women as
well as men. When states opened the first public universities in the
1860s, most accepted female students.
Congress passed a law that ended the Atlantic slave trade in 1808.
Once it became illegal to import slaves, Northern shipping communities
had no more interest in slavery. Northern textile mills, however, wanted
the cheap cotton that slave labor in the South provided. Although
slavery ended in the North by the early 1800s, many Northerners still
accepted slavery.
Abolitionists wanted to end slavery, but they did not always agree
about how to do it. Some abolitionists tried to inspire slaves to rise up
in revolt. Others wanted to find a peaceful way to end slavery
immediately. Still others wanted to give slaveholders time to develop
farming methods that didn't rely on slave labor.
From its earliest days, both blacks and whites worked in the abolition
movement, sometimes together, sometimes separately. Black activists
often kept their distance from their white counterparts. One African
American journalist remarked, “As long as we let them think and act for
us . . . they will outwardly treat us as men, while in their hearts they
still hold us as slaves.”
Angelina and her sister Sarah had been raised in a South Carolina
slaveholding family. After traveling North and becoming Quakers, they
saw slavery in a new way. In the 1830s, the two sisters began speaking
out about the poverty and pain of slavery. At first, they spoke only to
other women, but soon they were addressing large groups of men and
women throughout the North. The Grimkes led the way for other
women to speak in public.
Some abolitionists, like Sojourner Truth, were former slaves. Truth had
always been strongly spiritual and had preached throughout the North
at religious meetings and on street corners. When she met Douglass
and Garrison, their enthusiasm inspired her to speak out loudly about
slavery. An outstanding speaker, Truth argued that God would end
slavery peacefully.
Abolitionists were a minority, even in the North. But their efforts, and
the violence directed at them, helped change Northerners' attitudes
toward slavery. In addition, the antislavery fight helped pave the way
for the next great reform movement: the struggle for women's rights.
Even wealthy women like the Grimke sisters started to see that women
and slaves had much in common. “What then can woman do for the
slave,” asked Angelina Grimke, “when she is herself under the feet of
man and shamed into silence?”
The men's decision may have backfired, because it was in the balcony
that Mott and Stanton met. At first glance, the two women seemed
quite different. Mott was 47 years old, the mother of four children, and
an active reformer. Inspired by the Grimke sisters and her Quaker faith,
Mott had preached against slavery in both white and black churches.
She had also helped Prudence Crandall try to find students for her
school for black girls.
Stanton was 25 years old and newly married. She had never spoken in
public. As a young girl, she had overheard women beg her father, a
judge, to protect them from husbands who had beaten them. He had to
tell them that there was no law against it. Later, she attended Troy
Female Seminary, the nation's first high school for girls. She knew from
her history studies that the United States did not treat women fairly.
When she met Mott in London, she readily agreed that something had
to be done about the injustices suffered by women.
The Seneca Falls Convention Eight years passed before Stanton and
On July 19, 1848, nearly 300 people, including 40 men, arrived for the
Seneca Falls Convention. Many were abolitionists, Quakers, or other
reformers. Some were local housewives, farmers, and factory workers.
Slowly, reformers for women's rights made progress. New York gave
women control over their property and wages. Massachusetts and
Indiana passed more liberal divorce laws. Elizabeth Blackwell started
her own hospital, which included a medical school to train other female
doctors.
Other reforms, including the right to vote in all states, would take
decades to become reality. Of all the women who signed the
declaration at Seneca Falls, just one would live to vote for president
legally: Charlotte Woodward.
Prison Reform Dorothea Dix pioneered the reform of prisons and the
treatment of people with mental illness. Her efforts led to
improvements in state prison systems and the creation of public
institutions and hospitals for the mentally ill.
Equal Rights for Women The women's rights movement began with
the Seneca Falls Convention and its Declaration of Sentiments.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott organized the convention.
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Susan B. Anthony was another key leader in the movement.
Soon after his arrival, Hawthorne got his first taste of farm life.“I have
done wonders,” he wrote about his first day of farm labor.
Hawthorne was not used to this kind of work, but he took to it with
relish. He even referred to the manure pile as the “gold mine,” in a
joking effort to glorify farmwork. It was “a delectable way of life,” he
wrote. “We get up at half-past six, dine at half-past twelve, and go to
bed at nine.”
Brook Farm was one of more than a hundred utopian communities that
sprang up across the country in the first half of the 1800s. The word
utopian comes from the 16th-century book Utopia, which describes a
perfect society on an imaginary island. These communities were all
based on ideals and practices aimed at building a new society, free of
social ills like poverty, crime, and injustice. Most of the communities
had religious foundations. But even those that did not, like Brook Farm,
were meant to create a kind of heaven on Earth.
George Ripley, a former minister, founded Brook Farm with his wife,
Sophia, and several partners in March 1841. Ripley was concerned
about the social problems he saw in urban, industrial America. He
wanted to form a rural community where people could live a healthier
life, in harmony with nature. He also wanted to bring different social
classes together and help the working poor.
These ideas reflected the era's reform spirit. But they also arose from
the special features of the transcendentalist movement.
Transcendentalists believed that people carried the light of God within
them. They could experience that light by opening up to the beauties of
nature and a simpler life.
Many young people at the time were also filled with the spirit of change,
or what they called the “Newness.” Freedom was in the air. Young men
grew beards and let their hair grow long. They wore floppy hats and
loose-fitting clothes. They embraced new ideas, such as vegetarian
diets, and new ways of speaking. This sense of freedom was reflected
at Brook Farm.
The farm itself was set in beautiful, rolling country just eight miles west
of Boston. Its 170 acres were dotted with woods, pastures, and
meadows. Running through the property was a little brook that gave the
farm its name. A two-story farmhouse became the principal residence.
Residents called it the “Hive” because it was the hub of activity. There
was also a large barn with stalls for cattle and horses. Brook Farm was
an ideal setting for a rural retreat.
Everyone at Brook Farm was expected to work. But they were free to
choose the kind of work they did. Women could plow the fields, if they
wanted, and men could do housework. All labor was “sacred, when
done for a common interest,” wrote one resident. Everyone was paid
the same, and no one worked more than ten hours a day or six days a
week. At the time, that was considered a short workweek.
Most residents seemed to enjoy work on the farm. One young woman,
Marianne Dwight, took special pleasure in what she called “fancy
work”: sewing caps and other clothing for sale in Boston. She believed
that the money and skills gained through this work would help aid the
cause of women's rights. “We may start other branches of business,”
she wrote in a letter, “so that all our proceeds may be applied to the
elevation of women forever . . . How the whole aspect of society will be
changed!”
Residents at the farm did more than work. They also held dances,
attended concerts and lectures, and performed in plays. During the
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winter, they enjoyed snow sports like skating and sledding.
Other visitors were less notable, and some were downright odd. There
were “dreamers and schemers of all sorts,” one resident wrote. For
example, one visitor claimed he could survive without sleep, until he
was caught snoring in the library. Another claimed to live on a diet of
raw wheat. But he was found behind the barn one day, eating table
scraps set out for the chickens.
Although visitors paid for their stay on the farm, they did not contribute
labor. The farm had to add new buildings to house them. This placed a
burden on the farm's finances.
In fact, Brook Farm's finances had never been solid. In the beginning,
Ripley had asked members to invest in the farm, but few had done so.
He had also hoped to sell farm products, but few residents had any
farming experience. Furthermore, the farm's soils were not very good
for growing crops. As a result, the farm was always short of money.
Concerned about the future, in 1844 Ripley and other residents decided
to reorganize the farm. They established a new set of principles to
promote small industry and put the farm on a firmer footing. They
invited new members to join, including a number of craft workers and
laborers. They also began construction of a new, much larger building
and bought a steam engine to power new machinery. To pay for these
improvements, the farm took out new loans.
Despite its short history, Brook Farm was not a total failure. It changed
the lives of many of its members and influenced various reform
movements, including the abolition and women's rights movements. It
also inspired many people with its ideals of workplace equality and a
simpler, more sustainable life. Those ideals live on today.
What would schools teach? The nation's founders made that clear in the
Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which set the conditions for frontier lands
to become new states. “Religion, morality and knowledge, being
necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools
and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.”
Children sat on benches along the sides of the room, with the teacher's
desk at the front and a stove in the middle. Pictures, maps, and
blackboards were extremely rare. Sometimes there were dozens of
students at different levels of learning. (There was no system of first
grade, second grade, and so on.) The teacher had to keep all the
children busy. If students misbehaved, the teacher could hit them with
a rod, ruler, or lash.
Few schools were in session as long as they are now. Usually the school
year started around Thanksgiving and ended the following spring, when
planting began.
As for those boys and girls that mind not their books, and love not the
church and school, but play with such as tell lies, curse, swear and
steal, they will come to some bad end, and must be whipt till they
mend their ways.
After reading, students sharpened their quill pens, made ink from black
powder and water, and worked on their penmanship. There was no
lined paper in those days, so the first lesson, when students had paper,
was to draw straight lines across the page. Then the teacher had
students write sayings like “Contentment is a virtue.”
Spelling followed reading. The teacher spelled out words, and the
students recited them back.
In the 1820s and 1830s, the Second Great Awakening swept the
country. During this time of religious enthusiasm, many new Protestant
sects were born, and they had different views of the Bible. To them, the
morality taught in village schools was bland and ineffective.
Both boys and girls attended public schools, but girls and women had
fewer educational opportunities than their male counterparts. Most
teachers believed that a woman's role was to be a wife and mother.
Girls were generally not encouraged to go to high school or college
unless they planned to be schoolteachers. Nor were they encouraged to
study such subjects as history, mathematics, or the sciences.
The work of reformers like Willard and Lyon created new educational
opportunities for girls and women. Still, men continued to dominate
many occupations and fields of study. In the second half of the 20th
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century, a new women's movement championed true equality for
women in both educational and occupational opportunity.
How did Americans of the 19th century view education? One good way
to find out is to look at primary-source documents.
In this essay, you will find two kinds of documents. Document Sets 1
and 2 contain writings about the importance of education. Document
Sets 3 and 4 illustrate the kinds of materials that were used in
classrooms. Together, these documents reveal some of the teaching
philosophies and methods of early American education.
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Here are some passages from a book Lancaster wrote in 1803. The
passages describe some of his methods. Imagine being a student, a
mentor, or a teacher in a Lancastrian school. As you read, think about
what your daily life would have been like.
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Horace Mann was an important advocate for free public schools. Here
are three passages from a report he wrote in 1848. As you read, think
about this question: How did Mann believe that education could
improve the nation's social and political life?
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