Topic # 13
The Antebellum North
I. Life in the cities
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Growth in number and size of cities
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40 years before Civil War saw most rapid urbanization
in American history
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Number of towns with more than 2,500 inhabitants
jumped from 56 to 350 during that period from 1820-1850
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N.Y. largest, with over 1,000,000 people when
combined with Brooklyn
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Large numbers of those living in large cities
were transients--estimated in NYC that 1/2 of people moved every 10 years
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Life in cities
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Physical setting
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crowded housing--no high rises yet, so lots
of people living in little space
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problems with water and sewers--usually left
to private companies at first, finally city takes over
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Police and fire protection
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in private hands at first--nightwatch and
patrols
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gradually moved to professional, especially
with police
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Entertainment
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Theatre--different types for different classes--still
Shakespeare was performed for all types (and appreciated)
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Sports--horse racing, boxing, running, and
baseball
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Urban clubs--from sporting clubs, social clubs,
to elitist associations such as Freemasons
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Entertainment for lower classes found in the
yards and streets--served as gathering places for a variety of events--chatting,
political rallies, etc.
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Change in living patterns in cities
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In the cities, people began to live apart
from their work--no longer home and business always combined
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Wealthy elite gradually moved farther and
farther away from the city center
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away from smells and dangers of city, immigrants,
migrants from the countryside, and lower classes
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saw these lower-class people as polluting
urban society--they were troublemakers
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horse-drawn streetcars aid move
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Differences of wealth
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The rich control large part of wealth in cities
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Rich form an aristocracy of wealth--brings
them power
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in NYC, by 1845, wealthiest 5 percent of population
owned more than 80% of all wealth
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Day-to-day existence
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improvements in manufacturing and improved
machine tools led to
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mass production of products
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reduced labor costs led to lower prices and
faster development of products--sewing machine
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world became a smaller place with spread of
telegraph--news of events elsewhere reached city people quickly
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for most in city, daily life still a precarious
existence because of cyclical nature of economy
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Life in the country also changes
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Agriculture was affected by new inventions
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Cyrus McCormick introduces a mechanical reaper
in 1834, making harvesting of wheat faster and easier
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John Deere developed a steel-tipped plow in
1837, made it easier to cut through soil--opened the prairies to farming
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Growth of crops also improved by introduction
of better animal feed and the use of chemical fertilizers
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Spread of railroads
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stimulated economic growth of Midwest, tied
the farms to the market
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led to increased settlement, growth of towns
and cities
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Chicago and Milwaukee became the entrepot's
of the new Midwest
II. Antebellum Reform Movements in the
North
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Second Great Awakening
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Begins around the turn of the century and
runs through the 1830s
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Builds upon the evangelical movement that
grew during the late 18th century
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Lyman Beecher (New England) and Charles G.
Finney (upstate New York) helped spark the movement with their sermons
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The religious fervor in upstate New York,
around Rochester, was so fierce that it became know as "the Burned Over
District"--one person noted that "You could not go on the streets and hear
any conversation, except upon religion."
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Helps break down the establishment of religion
in many states--talk about Baptists and Methodists in Virginia
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Also leads to efforts to make political participation
more widespread among white males and to a series of reform movements,
especially in the North
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Utopian movements
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Developed as attempt to form cooperative communities
(communes) as alternatives to competitive, materialistic capitalism
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Mormons
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Joseph Smith, who grew up in Burned Over district
of NY, formed Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons) in
1820s
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Smith based this new religion on what he claimed
was a newly found book of the Bible, the Book of Mormon
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he quickly gains followers and enemies, moving
steadily westward to escape persecution (received hostile reception wherever
he went because many saw his claims as undermining authority of the Bible)
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1843, Smith creates even more controversey
by claiming yet another revelation--polygamy
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in 1844, Smith jailed in Illinois under charges
of treason, where he and his brother murdered by a mob
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Brigham Young takes over, moves Mormons west
to Utah
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Shakers
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Began in late 18th century, but really began
to grow during the 2d Great Awakening
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Centered in upstate New York, one of the most
unusual utopian movements
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Believed strongly in perfectionism, the surrender
of all worldly property to the community, and devoting oneself to bringing
about the millennial kingdom of heaven
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Shakers believed in absolute chastity--sex
is a sin, pure and simple
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Sect would continue through converting others
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Shakers pretty much died out by the beginning
of the Civil War
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Brook Farm and the Transcendentalists
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Transcendentalists
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drew somewhat on the ideas expressed by British
Romantic writers
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transcendentalism embraced a theory of the
individual that rested on a distinction between "reason" and understanding"
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reason being individual's innate capacity
to grasp beauty and truth by giving full expression to the instincts and
emotions, understanding (objective, empirical thought) was a limited form
of reason (limited by society's repression of instinct)--one thus becomes
transcendent of traditional bounds
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the self became the center of life and thought--subjective
analysis, not scientific reasoning became the mode of approaching human
problems
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Ralph Waldo Emerson argued that in nature,
all forms existed not as objective realities, but as subjective "expressions
of some property inherent in man the observer."
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leaders of the transcendentalist movement
included Ralph Waldo Emerson, Bronson Alcott, Margaret Fuller, and Henry
David Thoreau
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concentrated near Concord, Mass.
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Brook Farm
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Boston transcentendentalist George Ripley
and Bronson Alcott established Brook Farm in 1841 as experimental community
in West Roxbury, Mass.
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individuals would gather to create a new society
permitting every member to have full opportunity for self-realization
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everyone would share equally in labor of community
so all could share too in leisure
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tensions plagued experiment from the start,
when fire breaks out and destroys main building in 1847, falls apart
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The Dial--edited by Margaret Fuller, newspaper
of Transcendentalists
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Temperance
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attacks on "demon rum"
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moved for Sunday closing laws
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supported by employers, who deplored "St.
Monday"
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helped garner support for prohibition in a
number of northern states (except for "medicinal purposes")
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Asylums and Prisons--Dorothea Dix gets her
start in Mass. attempting to reform asylums
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Dix's report to the Mass. legislature on facilities
for the insane left it shocked
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Stated that inmates were confined in "cages,
closets, stalls, pens! Chained, naked, beaten with rods, and lashed
into obedience."
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Dix suggested that an asylum with trained
attendants be set up for the insane
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Dix and others moved to get more humane treatment
throughout the nation for inmates of public facilities--insane, deaf, dumb,
and blind, and prisons
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Public education
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1800--no public schools outside of New England
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1860--every state has some form of public
education
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Horace Mann
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heads Mass. state board of education
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Mann claimed well-educated population essential
to maintaining democracy
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est. minimum school year (6 mos.), formalized
training of teachers, emphasized reading and writing, emphasized applied
skills rather than religious training
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Public education accepted in North as businessmen
learned that it allowed one to instill basic values in children at an early
age
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work hard and succeed
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accept the instructions of your superiors
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do not envy rich--God determines who will
be rich or poor and you can't change it
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Abolition
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abolitionist movement built up force again
(following emancipation in northern states) in 1817, with formation of
the American Colonization Society
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pushed for gradual, compensated emancipation
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return of blacks to Africa
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American Colonization Society's conservative
views of emancipation challenged by more radical voices
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black abolitionists called for no colonization--most
were native born Americans
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David Walker, a free black from Boston, called
for a rebellion to crush slavery
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In 1831, William Lloyd Garrison begins The
Liberator, a newspaper dedicated to spreading his radical abolitionist
message
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Garrison called for immediate emancipation
and equal rights for blacks
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he argued that Americans should stop supporting
or participating in government, because it was immoral and illegal
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northern African Americans supported Garrison's
efforts
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white and black abolitionists often sharply
disagree on goals and methods
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many white's sought only to abolish slavery,
had no thought of treating African Americans as social or political equals
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black abolitionists, often led by Frederick
Douglas (an escaped slave) pushed for full equality
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Being abolitionist dangerous--1837, abolitionist
editor Elijah Lovejoy murdered in Illinois by angry mob
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American Anti-Slavery Society forms in 1833
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largest abolitionist organization in U.S.
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in 1839, AA-SS split over two issues:
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whether to form political party and run candidate
for office (Garrison opposed any form of participation in government, said
it legitimized illegal govt.)
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role of women in organization
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Abolitionists petitioned Congress
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during early 1830s, abolitionists flooded
Congress with petitions calling for an end to slavery in D.C.
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to stop these petitions from interrupting
business (which was their primary goal), southerners in government get
Congress to pass "gag rule" which automatically tabled any abolitionist
petitions (stopping any discussion of it)
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"gag rule" causes a stink, even among congressmen
who have no sympathy for abolitionists--overturned in 1845