A New Spirit of ChangeChapter 14

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Ireland

Germany

Great Britain

The Americas

Scandinavia

Other

Emigration to the U.S. from Europe

1820-1860

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Irish

• Fleeing hunger (caused by Potato Famine), poverty, & English persecution

• Settled in East Coast cities

• Famine is when people starve due to lack of food

Germans

• Escaping warfare in Central Europe

• Settled primarily in Midwest and some in Texas like in Fredericksburg and New Braunfels

Pull and Push Factors

PUSH FACTORS•High population in Europe•Crop failures •Industrial Revolution•Religious turmoil and warfare

PULL FACTORS•Freedom•Economic opportunity•Lots of Land

Reforms

• From the 1820’s onward, America started to change for the better. These changes are called reforms.

• A Reformer is someone who sees that something is wrong in our society, so that person tries to reform or fix the problem.

• Examples include:

Dorothea Dix – Mental Illness

• People with mental illnesses were not understood in early America and were often mistreated and sometimes even abused.

• Dorothea Dix led the fight for better treatment of the mentally ill.

• Dorothea Dix reformed the treatment of the mentally ill by convincing many that these people should not be locked away in prisons but treat with care. Eventually mental hospitals were opened throughout the country to help the mentally ill.

Horace Mann- School Reform

• Before the American Revolution there were very few public schools. Only wealthy children received an education.

• Horace Mann wanted to change that. With his reforms public schools were opened up all across the nation that taught all children, rich and poor, in the same schools.

• Schools would also be free and children would be forced to receive an education!

Yes this man is the reason you are here right now!

Temperance Movenment – Alcohol

• Alcohol was a serious problem in our countries early history. Many people especially poorer men drank way too much.

• Church based Temperance (The avoidance of Alcohol) Leagues started across the country to ban alcohol.

• They would fight an almost 100 year battle which they finally won in 1919 with the passing of the 18th Amendment to the Constitution which banned the selling of Alcohol until 1933.

Prison Reform – Treatment of Prisoners

• Prisons were truly horrible in early America. Prisoners often had to remain silent, eat terrible food, and were beaten by guards.

• Prison reformers like Eliza Farnham want to change these conditions.

• They wanted prisoners to be reformed. She allowed prisoners to be educated in the hopes that they would be rehabilitated or changed for the better so they could go back into society.

Second Great Awaking - Religon

• Methodist, Baptist, and other Protestant religious groups became popular.

• They often held outdoor services to recruit new converts.

• These groups were very successful and attracted large numbers. These churches also taught and encourage reforms like the temperance movement.

Shaping an American Identity

• During the middle part of the 19th century American artist started giving voice to an American Identity.

• For example before this period Americans read English literature along with Greek tragedies, but now American authors were publishing important works and an astonishing rate.

Hudson River School

• A school of painters who influenced early American art. They focused on landscapes or paintings of the environment.

Asher Durand … Hudson River School Landscape Painter

• Founder of Hudson River School

• Painted “feeling” rather than reality

Thomas Cole … Hudson River School Landscape Painter

• Most famous of the Hudson River School artists

• Painted series … like Voyage of Life and Course of Empire

The Savage State

Thomas Cole … Pastoral State

The Pastoral State

Thomas Cole … Consummation of Empire

Thomas Cole … Destruction

Thomas Cole … Desolation

John James Audubon

• Nature artist• Best known for his

sketches of birds• Audubon Society

named in his honor

Later American Artist – Western Art

• Frederic Remington, Charles Russell, George Catlin painted art of the American West.

A lot of these can be found at the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth!

Ralph Waldo Emerson – Philosopher

• Wrote essays emphasizing need for Americans to be self-reliant—independent from European culture

• Encouraged Americans to learn about life from nature, self-examination, and KNOWLEDGE

• Transcendentalism was the belief that humans were good, and through knowledge we achieve individual perfection

Do not go where the path may lead,go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

Henry David Thoreau

• Walden• Civil Disobedience

• Suggested that people should live by their own standards

• With Emerson, founded the philosophy of Transcendentalism … Spiritual world more important

than physical world Truth can be discovered by

feeling and intuition

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams!Live the life you've imagined.

Walt Whitman - Poet

• Patriotic Poet … wrote poems praising ordinary Americans

• Best known for his poems

• Leaves of Grass “I Hear America Singing” “Oh Captain, My

Captain”

Emily Dickinson

• A recluse in life, became extremely famous after her death.

• Shaped American poetry by experimenting with language (with Whitman)

• Poems focused on subjects of God, Nature, Love, and Death

Hope is the thing with feathers,

that perches in the soul,

and sings the tune without words,

and never stops at all.

James Fenimore Cooper – Author

• Wrote books known as the Leatherstocking Tales … 5 books in all including Last of the Mohicans

• Featured nature & life on the frontier along with the “Noble Savage” an Indian who behaves with the morals and bravery of a white Man.

Washington Irving

• Legend of Sleepy Hollow

• Rip van Winkle

• Wrote some of the 1st novels describing America

• Usually set in the New York countryside

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

• Paul Revere’s Ride• One if by Land, two

if by sea.

• Celebrated America’s Past by retelling history through poetry.

• Made Paul Revere famous as a Revolutionary War hero, 20 years after his death,

Edgar Allen Poe

• The Raven• The Tell-Tale Heart• Annabel Lee

• Author of stories that dealt with the workings of the mind, horror, and detective stories.

• The Raven was extremely popular

Nathaniel Hawthorne

• Wrote stories set in Puritan New England

• Like Poe, had a dark view of human nature

• The Scarlet Letter• House of the Seven Gables

Herman Melville

• Melville’s stories, like Moby Dick, were drawn from his experiences at sea when he sailed on a whaling expedition.

“Call me Ishmael.”

Mark Twain

• Mark Twain was born in Missouri and became probably the most famous American writer of all time.

• His novels like Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn told stories of ordinary people living along the Mississippi River.

• He stories were often humorous and his characters talked in accents like real people of that time and place spoke.