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The Women's Suffrage movement
Many consider Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) to be the source of the reformers' long-running campaign for feminist inclusion and the origin of the Women's Suffrage movement. Harriet Taylor was a significant influence on John Stuart Mill's work and ideas, reinforcing Mill's advocacy of women's rights. Her essay, "Enfranchisement of Women," appeared in the Westminster Review in 1851 in response to a speech by Lucy Stone given at the first National Women's Rights Co -
The Radical Movement
The Radical movement campaigned for electoral reform, a reform of the Poor Laws, free trade, educational reform, postal reform, prison reform, and public sanitation.[1] Originally this movement sought to replace the exclusive political power of the aristocracy with a more democratic system empowering urban areas and the middle and lower classes. Following the Enlightenment's ideas, the reformers looked to the Scientific Revolution and industrial progress to solve the social problems which aro -
The Chartist movement
The Chartist movement sought universal suffrage. An historian of the Chartist movement observed that "The Chartist movement was essentially an economic movement with a purely political programme."[4] A period of bad trade and high food prices set in, and the drastic restrictions on Poor Law relief were a source of acute distress. The London Working Men's Association, under the guidance of Francis Place, found itself in the midst of a great unrest. In the northern textile districts the Chartists -
Reform in Parliament
Earl Grey, Lord Melbourne and Robert Peel were leaders of Parliament during the earlier years of the British reform movement. Grey and Melbourne were of the Whig party, and their governments saw parliamentary reform, the abolition of slave trading throughout the British Empire, and Poor Law reform. Peel was a Conservative, whose Ministry took an important step in the direction of tariff reform with the abolition of the Corn Laws. -
Child labor reform
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Know-Nothing movement,
also anti-Catholic, anti-Masonic, and nativist (1845–1856) -
Abolition movement
The addition of Mexico's former territories in 1848 at the conclusion of the Mexican-American War reopened the possibility of the expansion of race-based chattel slavery; the adaptation of the slave system to industrial-style cotton production resulted in increasing dehumanization of black workers and a backlash against slavery in the northern states; key figures included William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass. -
Women's rights movement
Founded by Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton who organized the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 and published a Declaration of Sentiments calling for the social and legal equality of women. Carried forward by Lucy Stone who began speaking out for women's rights in 1847, and organized a series of national conventions. Susan B. Anthony joined the cause in 1851 and worked ceaselessly for women's suffrage. -
Educational reform
(founder: Horace Mann); goals were a more relevant curriculum and more accessible education. Noah Webster's dictionary standardized English spelling and language; William McGuffey's hugely successful children's books taught reading in incremental stages. -
Prohibition or Temperance movement
Characterized by Frances Willard's Woman's Christian Temperance Union, which stressed education (formed 1881, declined in 1940s) and Carrie Nation's Anti-Saloon League (established nationally by Howard Hyde Russell), which promoted a confrontational approach towards bars and saloons. Other significant organizations include the Prohibition Party and Lincoln-Lee Legion. -
American labor movement
The campaign against excessive hours of work (and for the eight-hour day) was a central issue for the labor movement during the 19th century. The Knights of Labor, organized among the skilled trades in 1869 and led by Uriah Stephens, Terence Powderly and Mother Jones, was succeeded by the American Federation of Labor, the Industrial Workers of the World, and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (now the
