Religion and

Culture in the

1800’s

Second Great Awakening

• 1797 – 1859 • 1st Awakening had

occurred in the 1740s • 2nd began among frontier

farmers of Kentucky • Spread among

Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians

• Christians have a moral duty to improve society

• Let God in and gain admission to heaven through acts of faith

Charles G. Finney • 1792 – 1875 • Presbyterian minister • Allowed women to

participate in public prayer

• Taught that everyone has the ability to gain salvation through repentance and good works that demonstrate faith

• Planned and rehearsed his revivals

Lyman Beecher • 1775 – 1863

• Revivalist Presbyterian minister

• Father of Harriet Beecher Stowe

• Preached that citizens, not government ,are responsible for building a better society

• Strongly nativist and anti-Catholic

The Unitarians • Jesus not the Son of

God, but was an important teacher – there was no Virgin Birth, no miracles, and no Resurrection

• God is a unity, not a trinity (God is One)

• Still considered a Christian church

The Universalists • Believed in Universal

salvation – there is no Hell and God redeems everyone because He loves everyone

• God would not create a person knowing that they were doomed to eternal damnation

The Mormons • Church of Jesus Christ of

Latter-day Saints • Started in New York, but

were victims of constant harassment

• Moved to Ohio, then Missouri, then the town of Commerce, Illinois in 1839

• Renamed the town Nauvoo

• After founder’s murder in 1844, Mormons resettled in Utah

Joseph Smith • 1805 – 1844 • Recorder of The Book of

Mormon – received from an angel – which describes how Israelites arrived in America around 600 BC and were later visited by Jesus

• Had numerous legal run-ins in Missouri and Illinois which eventually led to his arrest

• Murdered by a mob in 1844 while awaiting trial

Brigham Young • 1801 – 1877

• President of Mormon church from 1847 -1877

• Founded Salt Lake City, Utah

• 1st Governor of Utah

• Led the Mormons west to Utah to escape persecution

• Practiced polygamy, had 55 wives

Utopian Communities

• Attempts to establish socially perfect communities, usually through equal communal sharing of all work, responsibilities and rewards

New Harmony, Indiana

• Town was bought in 1824 by utopians under Robert Owen with the intention of building it into a perfect socialist community

• No private property, no money

• Community failed and was dissolved in 1829

Oneida Community, NY • Founded by John Noyes in 1848 in

Oneida, NY; lasted until 1881 • All members of the community

shared in work (making silverware) • Every man was married to every

woman in the community (called complex marriage or free love)

• Old women introduced young men to sex, while old men did the same for young women (to avoid pregnancies)

• Efforts were made to breed more perfect children by careful selection of breeding partners; children were then raised by the community rather than by specific parents

• Community reached maximum size of about 300

Brook Farm • Founded in 1841, near

west Roxbury, MA

• Transcendentalist community

• Citizens would share all labor, be each others intellectual stimulation

• Community collapsed economically after being destroyed by fire in 1847

Shakers • The United Society of Believers in

Christ’s Second Appearing • Founded by Ann Lee (who Shakers

believed to be the Second Appearing of Christ) in England; offshoot of the Quakers

• No marriage allowed, lifelong celibacy required

• Shakers would adopt orphans to keep communities alive

• All work and living quarters were divided by sex, but the sexes were equals

• Peaked in mid 1800s with about 6000 members, today only 3 known practitioners in the US

Tent Revivals • Traveling ministers

would set up tents and preach, often for up to a week at the time

• Singing, prayers, and motivational sermons, were all designed to whip up the crowd into emotional protestations of faith

Benevolent societies

• Developed in large cities and towns to spread Protestant Christianity

• Soon began to focus on social issues such as temperance, prison reform, education reform, and abolitionism

Revivalism and abolition

• Most revivalists were also staunch supporters of the abolitionist movement

• Taught that slavery was sinful; slavery destroys the soul of the master while it destroys the body of the slave

Cultural

Movements of

Early 1800s

Neoclassical architecture

• Revival of Greek and Roman styles

• US modeled itself after the Roman Republic and the democratic ideals of ancient Greece

• Sometimes called the “Federal” style in the US

The White House • Built 1792 – 1800

• Burned during War of 1812, but restored by 1817

• Built onto in 1824, 1829, 1901, 1927, and 1946

• In 1950s, entire structure was rebuilt with a steel frame from the inside, out when it was found to be collapsing!

US Capitol • Built 1793 – 1811 • Burned during War of

1812, but restored by 1819

• Expanded between 1826 and 1863; small dome was added but soon replaced by the larger dome seen today

Monticello • Built 1768 – 1809 • Charlottesville, VA • Home of Thomas

Jefferson – he designed it himself

• Today, it is the only private home designated as a World Heritage Site by the UN

Alexis de Tocqueville • 1805 – 1859

• French

• Author of Democracy in America

• Toured US for 2 years observing how democracy was creating a uniquely “American” culture

• Determined America was a society where hard work and money-making was what drove people, where commoners never deferred to their “betters”, and where individualism was admired.

• Forerunner to “The American Dream”

Noah Webster • 1758 – 1843

• Published his first dictionary in 1806

• In 1826, published his “American” dictionary where he provided new American spellings of English words and included thousands of distinctly American words

Romanticism • Artistic and literary

movement that advocated feeling over reason, inner spirituality over external rules, individual over society, and nature over human-made environments

Hudson River School of Artists

• American artists who focused on painting distinctly American landscapes – canyons, rivers, scenes of wild, untamed frontiers

• Popular throughout 1800s

Washington Irving • 1783 – 1859

• Wrote The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Rip van Winkle

• Usually wrote under a pseudonym

• Perfected the short story as a true literary artform

Edgar Allan Poe • 1809 – 1849

• “Master of the Macabre”

• Wrote many poems and short-stories in the horror genre: The Raven, The Black Cat, The Cask of Amontillado, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Tell-Tale Heart

• Married his 13 year-old cousin (he was 26) but she died at 15

• Died of unknown causes (known to drink heavily)

James Fenimore Cooper • 1789 – 1851

• Wrote The Last of the Mohicans

• Wrote mostly about the frontier and relations between white settlers and Native Americans

Nathaniel Hawthorne

• 1804 – 1864

• Wrote The Scarlet Letter

• Wrote largely on man’s tendency to sin, resulting in his work being called “dark romanticism”

Herman Melville • 1819 – 1891

• Wrote Moby Dick

• One of the only Romantic authors to not be very popular during his own lifetime

Walt Whitman • 1819 – 1892

• Free Verse Poet

• Best known for his work Leaves of Grass

• Works described as obscene in his own time because of sexual frankness, homosexual themes

Emily Dickinson • 1830 – 1886

• American poet

• Wrote thousands of poems

• Obsessed with death

• Broke rules of poetry concerning structure, rhyme, and capitalization

• Famous recluse – did not leave her home for the last 30 years of her life

Transcendentalism

• Literary and philosophical movement

• Emphasized individualism and self-reliance over religion

• People need to “transcend” (overcome) the limits of their mind to embrace beauty and truth

• Hated conformity and “followers”

• Modern Day Hipsters…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

• 1803 – 1882 • Philosopher, lecturer,

essayist, and poet • Believed that all

things were divine because all things were connected to God

• Strong belief in individualism

Henry David Thoreau

• 1817 – 1862 • Author of Walden

and Civil Disobedience

• Early environmentalist

• Abolitionist • “That government is

best which governs not at all”

• Opposed taxes

Margaret Fuller • 1810 – 1850

• Author Woman in the Nineteenth Century – first major feminist work published in US

• Believed in women’s rights to education and employment; wanted prison reform and an end to slavery

• Died in a shipwreck

“Penny Press”

• Mass produced daily newspapers which became affordable for common people

• Focused on reports of fires, crime reports, marriages, gossip, politics, local news

Godey’s Lady’s Weekly

• 1830 – 1898

• Covered poetry, literature, and art primarily from women artists

• Included dress patterns, sheet music

• First magazine to copyright its material to prevent other publications from using it

Atlantic Monthly • 1857 – Today

• Focused on literary and cultural trends

• Founded and run by famous writers of the time: Stowe, Emerson, Longfellow, etc.

• Has published everyone from Mark Twain to Martin Luther King

Harper’s Weekly • 1857 – 1916

• Featured foreign and domestic news, fiction, essays on many subjects, and humor

• Became famous for its political cartoons by Thomas Nast