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Roger Williams founds Providence, Rhode Island
The 1630s brought about a time when theological differences began to undermine the harmony of “A city upon a hill.” Winthrop and some holy commonwealth leaders said that the commonwealth required cooperation between the church and the state, but Roger Williams, in 1631 argued that civil government should instead remain uninvolved with religious matters; Williams was banished in 1635, and purchased land from the Narragansett Indians, founding Providence in 1636. Other dissenters followed William -
Great Awakening; George Whitefield’s two-year American tour
In 1739, there was an outpouring of European Protestant revivalism. This time represented an unleashing of anxiety and longing among ordinary people concerned with their sin and salvation. The preaching of charismatic leaders such as Congregationalist Jonathan Edwards, William Tennent, and Theodore Frelinghuysen spoke to crowds and led meetings termed “Refreshings.” George Whitefield was another of these great speakers; he came the colonies and over a two-year period, spoke to crowds, convertin -
Cane Ridge, KY Camp Meeting
Camp meetings were gigantic revivals in which members of several denominations gathered together in open-air camps to hear revivalist speakers. One such meetings was held in Cane Ridge, Kentucky in August of 1801. Frontier revivals were usually not led by college graduates, but rather, by ordinary farmers and artisans who had experienced powerful religious conversions. Though frontier revivals disrupted religious custom, they also worked to promote law, order, and a sense of morality on the fro -
American Temperance Society organized in Boston, MA
Temperance movements varied – while all addressed the growing problem of alcohol distribution and consumption, some stressed total abstinence from alcohol and others supported a moderation in consumption of liquor. The first national temperance organization was the American Temperance society, created February 13, 1826, and was of the “total abstinence” party. Leaders of the temperance movement were nearly always men; for recruits, they targeted moderate drinkers in the laboring classes (manufa -
William Lloyd Garrison starts The Liberator
Anti-slavery sentiment flourished in the Revolutionary era, but declined in the early nineteenth century. Then, it caught on again with William Lloyd Garrison’s newspaper The Liberator first published on January 1 of 1831. Garrison’s views were extremely radical: he wanted slaves to be emancipated immediately, and believed that blacks had civil and legal equality and so should not be shipped “back” to Africa. Support for the Abolition movement came mostly from blacks; to join the abolitionists -
Horace Mann becomes secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education
Public schools were generally supported by rural parents, but reformers changed the educational system in the United States. Reformers argued that schools had to equip children for the emerging competitive and industrial economy. Manufacturers heartily supported the idea of tax-supported schools that would teach punctuality and discipline to their future workers. In 1837, Horace Mann was appointed Massachusetts first ever Secretary of the Board of Education. He promoted a sweeping transformatio -
Dorothea Dix begins teaching Sunday School at Jail
The early nineteenth century brought about new assumptions about the causes of deviancy; in order to combat poverty, crime, and insanity, new, highly regimented institutions were formed. These supposedly helped alter the moral influences on a person – the assumed causes of deviancy were drunken fathers and broken homes. Most penitentiaries were a place where solitary confinement was the key to reform for criminals. Poor people were sent to almshouses or workhouses where a regimented routine wou -
Brook Farm land is purchased
Utopian communities were usually founded by intellectuals, and were intended as alternatives to the prevailing competitive economy. On October 11, 1841, The Brook Farm community was formed by a group of religious philosophers – the transcendentalists; most members were Unitarians who sought to revitalize Christianity. The most controversial utopian community was the Oneida Community, formed in New York in 1848 by John Humphrey Noyes. This utopia practiced communism of property, and even of marr -
Commonwealth v. Hunt
The economic depression led to wage cuts, and these to discontent. Discontent led to reform movements in the laboring classes. In 1844, English-born radical George Henry Evans started a land reform movement – the National Reform Association. He argued that worker’s true interests could never be reconciled with an industrial order in which factory operatives sold their labor for wages – how would workers gain economic independence? – instead he argued for land as compensation for work. Many work -
Seneca Falls Convention
Women had few rights – they could not vote, they had no right to own property, and they were subjected to specific gender roles. Reform movements in the first half of the nineteenth century opened up opportunities for women to be involved in public activity. Most feminists did not begin fighting for women’s rights, but rather made women’s rights into a separate movement after their involvement with the abolitionists; women tended to be discriminated against within this movement, for playing rol -
Know-Nothings are formed from the Order of the Star Spangled Banner
The number of immigrants entering the United States dramatically increased during the first half of the nineteenth century. Many of these were Irish (and therefore Catholic) immigrants. As Catholic immigration increased, Protestants began their counterattack, forming Nativist groups such as the Order of the Star Spangled Banner. This Order became the “Know-Nothing” party in 1854, and became a political force during the 1850s. Nativism fed on a mixture of fears and discontents, partly the result
