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The Antebellum period occurred through dynamic a time of religious renewal and advancements in industry. The Market revolution transformed self-sufficient farms into an industrial society. The Second Great Awakening made America into a more religious nation. Before the Second Great Awakening and the Market Revolution women were deemed only to be satisfied by playing with their children in a park, dressed in beautiful dresses as depicted in the painting “The Happy Mother” (Document G). After the awakening and market revolution “traditional women’s work was rendered superfluous and devalued,” (The Market Revolution). Therefore, the Second Great Awakening and the Market Revolution changed the home life, workplace, and roles in society for women. The Second Great Awakening occurred because of widespread conversation; and women made up most of the conversation in churches, therefore they held a crucial part in the Great Awakening. Churches gave women a place to socialize outside the household. Charles G. Finney commented about how a Christian woman sought him out for consoling and afterwards she became “out-spoken in her religious convictions, and zealous for the conversation of her friends” (Document A). The Second Great Awakening gave women a new role in society, the first teacher. An editorial from Godey’s Lady’s Book declares that a mother is constituted by God as the first teacher of every human being.
Years before the Market revolution farm women and girls had an important place in the preindustrial economy, spinning yarn, making clothes and making candles and cheese. Factories took the role of women in the economy because the factories could produce the items women made at home much faster than women could. Even though these new factories took women’s role in the economy, the factories were willing to hire women. Having a job enthralled many women, because the “factory jobs promised greater economic independence for women...” (Women and the Economy). Women were among the first to participate in the Market Revolution, the women who participated were called “factory girls”. On average factory girls worked six days a week for twelve to thirteen hours. The textile mill at Lowell, Massachusetts was a “showing place factory” the factory girls were carefully supervised, they were escorted to church and to their boarding houses. The factory girls were forbidden to form unions, they had few opportunities to share dissatisfaction with working conditions (Women and the Economy). Ten percent of white women were working outside of their homes and an estimate that twenty percent had worked prior to marriage in 1850. A source of income allowed women to be less dependent of their husbands for money. Women were considered to be the “keepers of society’s conscience”. Without future leaders of their own, women shaped future citizens through their children. They sculpted the future citizens by teaching morals and spiritual foundation. Women’s family roles expanded when they taught morals and spiritual foundation. A nineteenth century home became a “woman’s sphere” were it was a love not parental “arrangement” (Women and the Economy). More commonly marriage was between two people who love each other than arranged marriage and because of this the families would be “closely knit and affectionate” providing a shelter from the harsh industrial personality. Women’s role in shaping society grew because often worked as teachers. Women were determined to see change where they saw wrong. Politically, Dorothea Dix petitioned to end the cruelty and mistreat meant of prisoners and the mentally insane (Document F). A petition was placed to the Massachusetts’s legislature in order to have women vote (Document I). Many women became antislavery activists after reading “Selling a Mother from Her Child” (Document B). Socially, ten percent of women choose to be “spinsters.”
During the Second Great Awakening the reform campaigns gave women a unique opportunity to escape the household and engage in public affairs. Afterwards women still viewed church as an opportunity to leave the house and socialize. Before the market revolution a woman’s job was to do housework and raise the children and after women could work in factories. Jobs in factories entitled women to a sense of independence from their husbands, they no longer had to rely on their husband for monetary needs. The market revolution formed a harsh big-city industrial personality because of this homes became a place of sanctuary. This also coincided with marriages being formed with love, these two mixed together formed closer relationships between family members and an affectionate aura in household. The Second Great Awakening and the market revolution entitled women many freedoms, these freedoms allowed women to sum up the courage to politically and socially change.