Any activist movement that betters the society. (ex. prison reform, mental illness, prohibition/temperance, suffrage, education
Prisons
prisons in Pennsylvania took place of crude jails and lockups
experiment to see if prisoners reflect on their sins in solitary confinement experiment dropped b/c prisoner suicides
ASYLUM MOVEMENT: structure and discipline would bring out moral reform
Auburn system in NY enforced rules of discipline while also providing moral instruction + work programs
Mental Illness
Dorothea Dix social activist, discovered insane women were locked up in jail, alongside male criminals
persuaded Mass. lawmakers to enlarge state hospital to accommodate indigent mental patients
state legislators after another build new mental institutions + improve existing > mental patients receive pro. treatment at states expense
Prohibition/temperance
moral exhortation > political action
protestant ministers founded American Temperance Society: persuade drinkers to not drink
Washingtonians(1840): recover alcoholics. alcoholism is disease needs treatment
1840s> successful, middleclass drinks water
German and Irish immigrants against temperance
factory owners + politicians join reform b/c prevents crime and poverty + increases workers output
Women’s Christian Temperance Union
Education
Thomas Gallaudet founded school for deaf
Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe school for Blind
by 1850 special schools modeled after them
motive for public education for all: fear for growing numbers of uneducated poor affects future of republic
● free common common=public schools
Horace Mann #1 leading advocate of public school movement> improved schools, increased teacher prep, longer school year, + child attendance
● moral education
wanted principles of morality, William Holmes Mcguffey created elem. textbooks > became basis of reading and moral instruction in many schools > hard work, punctuality, and sobriety(the kind of behaviors needed in an emerging industrial society.
Roman Catholics founded private schools for Catholic and foreign born ● higher education
● republican motherhood The Changing American
Family and Women’s
Rights Movement
● cult of domesticity*
● origins of women’s rights movement
● Seneca Falls
Convention
Second Great Awakening fuels educational reform. Many small colleges are founded, many admit women
preserve