Second Great Awakening
“IN WHAT WAYS DID THE SECOND GREAT AWAKENING INFLUENCE AMERICAN SOCIETY AND CULTURE?”
In the thirty year span between 1830 and 1860, the Second Great Awakening did much to change the modern American mind by sparking the abolitionist movement, empowering women (in their domestic sphere) and forming the cult of domesticity, partially fixing the corrupt government through the temperance movement, and in the creation of many utopian societies by radical religious populations. Puritanism was kicked to the side when Evangelicalism took root. This religious renaissance was absolutely more optimistic than worship from the past; sin was no longer an inevitable part of your being. Rather, you could find salvation through yourself, so long as you avoided or repented your sin.3 About twenty years after the Evangelical religions swept across America, delegates met in December of 1833 in Philadelphia.2 They called themselves the Anti-Slavery Society. The delegates, both black and white, discussed and condemned slavery. Calling it a sin, the delegates stated that slavery needed to be abolished right away. They pressed for non-prejudice, but that is what they got in return from numerous people in the North and South. Their social impact was astounding. They created dozens of “free-churches” to avoid the corrupt ones, created the first experimental school for coeducation, and even had a big 4enough impact on religion to have split the Methodists from the Baptists. With all of the hateful reactions, the Anti-Slavery Society even began to disagree with themselves. A man named William Lloyd Garrison found the solution in adding another equal rights movement, a movement for women.5 The working middle class had created boundary lines for both men and women. As men were pushed into the workforce, women were pushed into the home. A woman’s “sphere” as the Cult of Domesticity would have called it was her home, the place that the woman had control over, her private little
In the thirty year span between 1830 and 1860, the Second Great Awakening did much to change the modern American mind by sparking the abolitionist movement, empowering women (in their domestic sphere) and forming the cult of domesticity, partially fixing the corrupt government through the temperance movement, and in the creation of many utopian societies by radical religious populations. Puritanism was kicked to the side when Evangelicalism took root. This religious renaissance was absolutely more optimistic than worship from the past; sin was no longer an inevitable part of your being. Rather, you could find salvation through yourself, so long as you avoided or repented your sin.3 About twenty years after the Evangelical religions swept across America, delegates met in December of 1833 in Philadelphia.2 They called themselves the Anti-Slavery Society. The delegates, both black and white, discussed and condemned slavery. Calling it a sin, the delegates stated that slavery needed to be abolished right away. They pressed for non-prejudice, but that is what they got in return from numerous people in the North and South. Their social impact was astounding. They created dozens of “free-churches” to avoid the corrupt ones, created the first experimental school for coeducation, and even had a big 4enough impact on religion to have split the Methodists from the Baptists. With all of the hateful reactions, the Anti-Slavery Society even began to disagree with themselves. A man named William Lloyd Garrison found the solution in adding another equal rights movement, a movement for women.5 The working middle class had created boundary lines for both men and women. As men were pushed into the workforce, women were pushed into the home. A woman’s “sphere” as the Cult of Domesticity would have called it was her home, the place that the woman had control over, her private little
Cited: Faragher, John Mack, et al. Out of Many: A History of the American People. 3rd ed. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2000. Print. pgs. 343-344 Pearson. Pearson, n.d. Web. 10 Oct. 2013. . Stewart, James Brewer. "Abolitionist Movement." History. A&E Television Network, 1991. Web. 10 Oct. 2013. . Sztaray, Zsuzsa. "The Cult of Domesticity and True Womanhood." College of Staten Island Library. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Oct. 2013. . "Utopian Communities." Boundless. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Oct. 2013. . Williamson, Savannah L. "Religion as the Cause of Temperance and Abstinence: How the Second Great Awakening Took the Fun out of Nineteenth Century America." Clio 's Eye. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Oct. 2013. .