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Communitarianism
Robert Owen was the most important secular communitarian (which is a person who plans or lives in a cooperative community). He created a model factory village in New Lanark, Scotland which combined strict rules of work discipline with comfortable housing and free public education. Around 1815 New Lanark was the largest center of cotton manufacturing in the world. Owen promoted communitarianism as a way to ensure that workers received the full value of their labor. -
American Colonization Society
Usually, abolitionists called for free slaves to be deported back to Africa, the Caribbean, or Central America. Followers of this idea created the American Colonization Society which promoted the abolition of slavery and the settlement of black Americans in Africa. -
Perfectionism
Perfectionism was the idea that saw both individuals and society at large as capable of indefinite improvement. This outlook was popularized in the 1820s and 1830s by revivalists who believed that sinners could not only reform themselves but could also remake the world. -
New Harmony
In 1824, Owen established New Harmony. Here, children would be removed at an early age from the care of their parents to be educated in schools where they would be trained to subordinate individual ambition to the common good. Owen also defended women's rights by giving them access to education and the right to divorce. This settlement only lasted a few years, but it strongly influenced the labor movement, educational reformers, and women's rights advocates. -
Temperance movement
This movement targeted the redeeming of habitual drunkards and occasional drinkers. It was successful in stopping many people from drinking. At the same time, this movement and other similar movements aroused hostility, because what one person considered a sin, another considered a pleasure. -
American Anti-Slavery Society
Due to the rapid development of print technology and the expansion of literacy because of common schooling, antislavery leaders could spread their message to more people. This expansion of media caused the formation of the American Anti-Slavery Society. All this combined caused some 100,000 northerners to join local groups dedicated to abolition. -
Dorothea Dix
Dorothea Dix was a Massachusetts schoolteacher who was a leading advocate for more humane treatment of the insane. Generally, at this time they were placed in jails along with debtors and hardened criminals. Due to her efforts, 28 states constructed mental hospitals before the civil war. -
"gentlemen with property and standing"
Many northerners feared that the abolition of slavery would disrupt the Union, interfere with profits from slave labor, and overturn white supremacy. In turn, mobs led by "gentlemen with property and standing" disrupted abolitionist meetings. In 1835, a Boston crowd led William Lloyd Garrison through the streets with a rope around his neck. He barely escaped alive. -
Oneida (For picture: � This work is the property of the Syracuse University Library. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text.)
A man named John Humphrey Noyes preached that he and his followers had reached a state of complete "purity of heart," or sinlessness. In 1836, Noyes and his followers created a community where all members of it were a single "holy family" of equals. In 1848, he moved his community to Oneida. Oneida became an extremely dictatorial environment. To join the community one needed to show they followed Noyes's teachings and live according to his rules. This is an example of a utopian community. -
gag rule
In 1836, abolitionists began to flood Washington with petitions to call for emancipation in the capital. The House of Representatives then implemented the gag rule, which prohibited their consideration -
Liberty Party
A group of abolitionists called the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society believed women have no place in prominent positions. Determined to make abolitionism a political movement, the seceders formed the Liberty Party, which nominated James G. Birney. He only received 7k votes because antislavery northerners saw little wisdom in "throwing away" their vote on a third-party candidate. -
Brook Farm
Brook farm is another example of a utopian experiment that New England transcendentalists established not too far from Boston. They hoped to demonstrate that manual and intellectual labor could coexist in harmony. They modeled the community off of Charles Fourier's ideas of communal living and working arrangements. -
Woman Suffrage
Women's suffrage (women's right to vote) started at Seneca Falls. The Seneca Falls Convention was a gathering on behalf of women's rights held in the upstate New York town. -
Uncle Tom's Cabin
One of the most influential antislavery literature was Uncle Tom's Cabin. Written by Harriet Beecher Stowe's, it was modeled on the autobiography of fugitive slave Josiah Henson. -
Common School
One of the largest efforts at institution building before the Civil War was the movement to establish common schools. Common schooling is a tax-supported state school system that is open to all children. By 1860 every northern state had at least one. The South lagged in public education due to the fear of literate blacks and planters' unwillingness to tax themselves to educate poor white children.