Second Great Awakening The Second Great Awakening, an evangelical movement, generated widespread revivals. The Calvinist doctrine of predestination was often replaced by the concept of salvation by free will. The more democratic sects, such as Baptists and Methodists, gained huge numbers of converts. Evangelists preached to enslaved people that everyone is equal in the eyes of God.
Religious Movements The burned-over district in western New york was the birthplace of several religious movements, including the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, whose followers call themselves Mormons. Largely because they allowed multiple marriages, Mormons were persecuted, and their “prophet,” Joseph Smith, lost his life. Smith’s successor, Brigham Young, led the Mormons on a trek to then-isolated Utah in the hope that they could worship freely there. Another sect of this period, the Shakers, established celibate communities and believed that the Second Coming of Christ was imminent.
Romanticism The transcendentalists embraced the Romantic movement in reaction to scientific rationalism and Calvinist orthodoxy, producing works that transcended reason and the material world. At the same time, improved technology and communication allowed the works of novelists, essayists, and poets to reach a mass market.
Social Reform Movements America had an astonishingly high literacy rate, and reformers sought to establish statewide school systems. New colleges, most with religious affiliations, also sprang into existence. A few institutions, such as Vassar College, aimed to provide women with an education equal to that available to men at the best colleges. Social reformers sought to eradicate such evils as excessive drinking. They were active in the Sunday-school movement and in reforming prisons and asylums. With the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848, social reformers also launched the women’s rights movement.
Anti-Slavery Movement Northern opponents of slavery promoted several solutions, including deportation of African Americans to colonies in Africa, gradual emancipation, and immediate abolition. Radical abolitionist efforts in the North provoked a strong reaction among southern whites, stirring fears for their safety and resentment of interference. Yet many northerners shared the belief in the racial inferiority of Africans.
Defense of Slavery In defense of slavery, evangelical churches declared that it was sanctioned by the Bible; southerners proclaimed it a “positive good” for African Americans. Whereas only a quarter of white southerners held slaves, the planter elite set the standard for southern white culture.
World History
