The Second Great Awakening sparked new religious and social reform movements in the 1820s-1830s. Religious leader Charles Finney challenged traditional beliefs and advocated for individual responsibility and salvation through good deeds. Transcendentalists like Emerson and Thoreau promoted living simply and relying on personal judgment. Romantic artists glorified American landscape and individualism. Growing cities attracted millions of European immigrants, causing native-born Nativists to fear job losses. Women and reformers worked to improve prison conditions, temperance, education, and end slavery through abolition and the Underground Railroad.

1. Ch. 13 New Movements in
America
Section 1 America’s Spiritual Awakening

2. The Second Great Awakening
• New Interest in Christian Religion called The Second
Great Awakening 1820s-30s America
• Charles Grandison Finney – Most Important Leader
– Challenged Traditional Protestant Beliefs
– Advocated Individual Responsibility for own Salvation
– Sin Was Avoidable
– Demonstrate Faith by Good Deeds
• Church membership grew
– Many new church members were WOMEN
– And African Americans

3. Transcendentalism & Utopian
Communities
• What Is A Utopia?
• Transcendentalism – belief that people could transcend,
or rise above, the material things in life like money
• Ralph Waldo Emerson – Believed in Self-Reliance rather
than Institutions
– Wanted people to use own personal beliefs & judgement
– 1841 Essay “Self-Reliance”
– “What I Must Do Concerns Me, Not What the People Think”
• Thoreau – Wrote Famous Book Walden – About Living
Alone in the Woods for 2 Years In Order to Live More
Simply

4. The American Romantics
• 1800s Romantic Movement – Movement among Painters
& Writers drawing upon ideas about the simple life,
spirituality, & nature
– Beliefs: American Individualism, Nature over City, Democracy
• Romantic Artists – Painted the American landscape
– Contrasted w large cities & corruption
• Thomas Cole (painter), Nathaniel Hawthorne (The
Scarlett Letter), Edgar Allan Poe (The Raven), Emily
Dickenson (Poet), Walt Whitman (Poet)

6. Ch. 13 New Movements in
America
Section 2 Immigrants and Cities

7. Waves of Immigrants
• 4 Million European Immigrants settled in U.S. between
1840 & 1860
• 3 Million were German or Irish
• Fleeing economic or political troubles
• Searching for new economic opportunity & freedom from
govt control
• Chicago Daily Tribune: declared that the German
immigrant population was “fitted to do the cheap labor of
the country.”

8. The Nativist Response
• Industrialization & Immigrant greatly changed the
American labor force
• However, many native-born citizens (nativists) feared
losing the new jobs being created to immigrants willing to
work for lower wages
– Know-Nothing Party – nativists founded a secret society in 1849
that became a political organization to limit immigration
– Not very successful
• Rise of industry & growth of cities changed American life
created a new Middle Class – a social & economic level
between the wealthy & the poor

9. Ch. 13 New Movements in
America
Section 3 Reforming Society

10. Prison Reform
• Teachings of the Second Great Awakening inspired ppl to
improve society
• Growth of cities caused social problems many Americans
(especially women) wanted to correct
• Dorothea Dix – Middle Class prison system reformer
– Reported on terrible prison conditions
– Massachusetts State Govt responded by creating separate
facilities for mentally ill (rather than criminal)
• Correction Houses created – did not simply punish, tried
to change prisoners’ behavior through education
• Thoughts?

11. Campaigning Against Alcohol
Abuse
• Temperance Movement – Social Reform effort urging
people to limit hard drinking
• Many people believed Americans consumed too much
liquor in early & mid 1800s
• The Common-School Movement – Social reform efforts
promoting the idea of having all children educated in a
common place regardless of social class or background
• Unusual idea at the TIME

13. Ch. 13 New Movements in
America
Section 4 The Movement to End Slavery

14. Abolition
• 1830s – Anti-Slavery Americans Take Action
• Formed Movement to Support Abolition – or the complete
end of slavery & emancipation
• Quakers – First Group to Challenge Slavery on Religious
Grounds– Seen as Morally Wrong
• William Lloyd Garrison – Outspoken leader for Abolition
– published the abolitionist newspaper The Liberator
• Grimke Sisters Write: Appeal to Christian Women of the
South p. 409
• How did the Grimke sisters believe women could help

15. The Underground Railroad
• By 1830s loosely organized group helped slaves
escape from the South
• Free African Americans, former slaves, some white
abolitionists worked together to create the Underground
Railroad
– Network of people arranged transportation & hiding places for
fugitives/escaped slaves
– Harriet Tubman – Most famous & daring conductor
– of the Underground Railroad
• Led her family & 300 + slaves to freedom

18. Ch. 13 New Movements in
America
Section 5 Women’s Rights