Michael Gennaro
AMH2010
13 April 2015
Second Great Awakening
As a part of the American Revolution, the Founding Fathers did not agree with the combination of politics and religion. In the First Amendment in the Constitution, they established the separation of the church and the state. In the United States, there have been a series of religious revivals that converted religions scenery of the country. The transformation is known as the Second Great Awakening, a Protestant revival movement during the 19th century in the United States. It was a reaction to growing liberalism in religion. There were a few religions growing rapidly in the nation. While both the First and Second Great Awakening emphasis on morality and religious teaching, the Second Great Awakening focused on increasing political participation of common citizens. The Second Great Awakening encouraged social reforms such as temperance, women’s rights movement, and abolishing slavery.
The First Great Awakeniing was led by George Whitefieild. It focused on
The Second Great Awakening had quite revivals in the American society. There were reformers of every kind that came together to improve women’s rights, education and religious righteousness. The mainstream of the movement were the temperance reformers who fought for a change in alcoholism, and abolitionist.
Temperance reformers were mostly women and religious leaders. The temperance leader at this time was Lyman Beecher, talked about how intemperance was destroying our nation. He stated that intemperance was,”…continually transferring larger and larger bodies of men, from the class of contributors to the national income, to the class of worthless consumers...,” which meant that more men were taking away from the national then putting in. Other reformers created images to demonstrate how starting at a simple glass of this “demon rum” could lead to death or even suicide. Reformers such as Henry Clay Work wrote songs that at times