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Communitarianism
Communitarianism was a social reform movement driven by the belief that establishing small communities based on common property ownership would lead to a less competitive and individualistic society. Robert Owen advocated for communitarianism as a peaceful means of ensuring that workers received the full value for their labor. -
American Colonization Society
In 1816, the American Colonization Society was founded. The American Colonization Society promoted the gradual abolition of slavery and the settlement of black Americans in Africa. Many political leaders, including Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and Jackson, supported the Colonization Society, and many northerners viewed colonization as the only way to remove slavery in America. For example, the American Colonization Society established Libera on the coast of West Africa for blacks to move there. -
Perfectionism
Perfectionism is the idea that once considered incurable; social ills could be eliminated. This idea was popularized by the religious revivalism of the nineteenth century. The way to "cure" undesirable elements of society was to place afflicted persons and impressionable youths in an environment where their character could be transformed. Revivals believed society and individuals at large were capable of indefinite improvement. -
New Harmony
The New Harmony was a community founded by British industrialist Robert Owen in 1825. This community was one of the few nineteenth-century communal experiments not based on religion. Owen hoped to create a "new moral world" by implementing equality and education in the community. For example, Owen imposed the idea of removing children from the care of their parents at an early age to be educated in schools where they would be trained to subordinate individual ambition to the common good. -
Temperance movement
Militant Christians led the temperance movement. It was a widespread reform movement that focused on reducing the usage of alcoholic beverages. The temperance movement was founded in 1826 and claimed to have persuaded hundreds of thousands of Americans to renounce liquor by the 1830s. This movement helped many people limit and resist drinking. -
The Common School
The common school were tax-supported state schools of the early nineteenth century open to all children. In the early nineteenth century, most children were educated in locally supported schools or private academies. Also, many had no access to education at all. This caused Horace Mann, a Massachusetts lawyer who served as director of the state's board of education, to lead an educational reform. Mann hoped universal public education could restore equality to a fractured society. -
Feminism
Feminism was a term created in the early twentieth century to describe the movement for full equality for women in political, social, and personal life. Early feminists insisted women deserved the range of individual choices that constituted the essence of freedom. Margaret Fuller, a feminist, wrote that women had the same right as men to develop their talents. The creation of feminism allowed women to have a voice and speak for equality. -
American Anti-Slavery Society
The American Anti-Slavery Society was founded in 1833. It was an organization that wanted an immediate end to slavery and the implementation of equality for black Americans. Abolitionists took advantage of the invention of the steam printing press and produced many copies of pamphlets and newspapers. While the American Anti-Slavery Society was present, 100,000 northerners joined local groups devoted to abolition. -
Gentlemen of Property and Standing
Gentlemen of property and standing were merchants who often had commercial ties to the South and resisted abolitionism. These mobs of merchants disrupted abolitionist meetings in northern cities. They feared the overturn of white supremacy. An example of a violent act portrayed by these merchants is when a Cincinnati mob destroyed the printing press of James G. Birney, a former slaveholder who had been converted to abolitionism. -
Gag Rule
The House of Representatives adopted the gag rule in 1836. This rule prohibited the consideration of abolitionist petitions. The opposition to the gag rule was led by former president John Quincy Adams, who succeeded in repealing the rule in 1844. The creation of the gag rule caused extreme anger within the North. -
Liberty Party
The Liberty party was an abolitionist political party that nominated James G. Birney for president in 1840 and 1844. The Liberty party split from the Anti-Slavery Society. This party wanted to continue the abolition of slavery and believed it was wrong for a woman to occupy a prominent position. Although the primary goal of the liberty party was identical to the Anti-Slavery Society, slight differences in opinions caused them to split away. -
Dorothea Dix
Dorothea Dix, a Massachusetts school teacher, was the leading advocate of more humane treatment of the insane, who at the time were placed in jails alongside debtors and hardened criminals. Thanks to her efforts, twenty-eight states constructed mental hospitals before the Civil War. It shocked her greatly when she started teaching at the Cambridge jail in 1841. This caused her to start advocating for more humane treatment of mentally ill people. -
Brook Farm
The Brook Farm was a Transcendentalist commune in West Roxbury, Massachusetts. It was established in 1841, and the purpose of this farm was to demonstrate that manual and intellectual labor could coexist harmoniously. They modeled Brook Farm from the ideas of the French social reformer Charles Fourier, who envisioned communal living and working arrangements while retaining private property. Additionally, Brook Farm attracted mostly writers, teachers, and ministers. -
Oneida
Oneida was a New York utopian community founded in 1848. The Perfectionist religious group practiced "complex" marriage under John Humphrey Noyes. Noyes Preached that he and his followers had become so perfect that they had achieved a state of complete "purity of heart," or sinlessness. Oneida was an extremely dictatorial environment and was viewed as a controversial but influential community. -
Woman Suffrage
Woman suffrage was a movement to give women the right to vote through a constitutional amendment. Seneca Falls marked the beginning of the seventy-year struggle for woman suffrage. The Declaration of Sentiments condemned the entire structure of inequality that denied women access to education and employment, gave husbands control over property and custody of children, and deprived women of independent legal status. -