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What's reform?
to make changes in something in order to improve it
Why were the Germans notable in the mid-1800s United States?
They were the second largest group of immigrants.
What are subsistence farms?
farms whose produce went mostly to support the farmer and his family, with only surplus (extra/excess) crops sold on the market
How were the Irish notable in the mid-1800s United States?
They were the largest group of immigrants.
What's Temperance (as a movement)?
drinking little or no alcohol
What's xenophobia?
fear/dislike of people from other countries
Who were the Mormons?
They were followers of the Church of LDS (Latter-Day Saints) had the largest (or second largest) mass migration in U.S. history to Great Salt Lake, and established (arguably) the only semi-successful utopia in the history of the world for a time.
What was the Erie Canal?
manmade waterway from the Hudson River (Albany, NY) to Lake Erie
construction was from 1817-1825
363 miles long
83 locks: compartments that build up water and then open to move ships from one elevation to another
goods easily moved between the east coast and the Northwest, and could then be traded to the West
What was the Gold Rush?
A period in late-1848 and 1849 when thousands immigrated or migrated to San Francisco and Sacramento CA hoping to make money after gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill. It doubled the world's supply of gold.
Who were the Know-Nothings?
a secret (for awhile) patriotic society that was anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic
they were also known as the Order of the Star Spangled Banner, then the American Party (which won some offices/elections)
What was negative about the Gold Rush?
Most people didn't make any money from gold, or any money at all (primary sources called the Rush a fraud).
There was lawlessness, theft, violence, drunkeness, loneliness, broken families, failed business, bankruptcy, inflation, and death.
Native Americans and Californios lost their land (sometimes even through the courts) unlawfully as a result of the mass migration to CA after the Gold Rush.
Why did Catholics face discrimination in the U.S.?
Most people in the U.S. were Protestant.
Many Protestants believed Catholics were more loyal to the pope than to the Constitution, and thus would try to overthrow the government.
Almost all Irish immigrants were Catholic during the first big wave of immigration, and they were seen as dirty because they were poor, took the roughest jobs, and lived in ghettos.
The Irish had a talent for politics, and non-immigrants felt threatened.
What's suffrage?
The right to vote
What effect did the factory system have on family life?
It separated work and the home (the home and the workplace used to be at the same location).
This meant (mostly) men went to a separate space for work, while women stayed home for childcare, homemaking, and (possibly) a cottage industry (side hustle).
What was positive about the Gold Rush?
There was great equality in northern California, because everyone started equally at the same level to try and be successful (it didn't matter if you were rich, poor, black, white, etc.).
Many people were creative and industrious, making money by selling products (e.g. jeans).
California had a lot of diversity, with immigrants even coming from China.
It helped lead CA to becoming a state and growing in population extremely quickly.
How was education reformed?
Horace Mann led the way with the three principles of public education in Massachusetts. Many northern states followed. (1) schools should be free and supported by taxes (2) teachers should be trained (3) children should be required to attend school.
Later reformers supported coeducation (boys & girls together) and college opportunities for women in subjects that used to be reserved for men.
What were three notable new inventions from the North in the mid-1800s U.S.?
sewing machine: allowed factories to mass produce clothing
mechanical reaper (1834): semi-automated device that harvests crops
electric telegraph (1832): allowed people to send messages instantaneously over thousands of miles
What was the culture (don't describe the theology of the religion) of Puritanism?
the religion of old New England
the culture of Puritanism and its grinding, competitive work habits spread from New England, to the Northwest Territory, and all the way to California
this Puritan/northeastern spirit made the above regions the most prosperous in the world
What did manufacturing / factories produce in the northeastern United States in the mid-1800s?
other factories produced:
weaving cotton into cloth
pig iron: crude iron that is refined to make steel
machine tools
firearms
furniture
clocks
Why did many believe that the home was the proper area for women?
because:
it had generally been that way since the ancient days
of popular ideas about family
the outside world was seen as dangerous and corrupt
raising children was a serious responsibility to prepare them for a Christian life, and women seemed best fit to do that
they were seen as kinder and more moral than men
they were expected to be models of goodness for their children and husbands
textbooks, women’s college courses, novels and magazine articles supported and taught the value of a woman’s role at home
it was an important job to be a homemaker: manager of a home
What gains did women make in marriage, family, and property laws?
NY, PA, IN, WI, MS, CA recognized the right of women to own property after their marriage
some states passed laws permitting women to share the guardianship of their children jointly with their husbands
IN was the 1st of several states to allow women to seek divorce if their husbands were chronic abusers of alcohol
Who were two reformers for the Women's Movement, and what did each do? Choose any two.
Lucy Stone: first woman from Massachusetts to earn a college degree (Oberlin, 1847); possibly the first women’s rights activist; broke custom by keeping her last name after getting married; inspired most of the original women’s rights leaders
Lucretia Mott: was a Quaker in Pennsylvania, where women enjoyed a unique amount of equality in their own communities; gave lectures in Philadelphia about temperance, peace, worker’s rights, and abolition; helped fugitive slaves; went to the world antislavery convention in London and met Elizabeth Cady Stanton; joined forces with Stanton to work for women’s rights
Elizabeth Cady Stanton: organized the first women’s rights convention in 1848 in Seneca Falls, NY; Mott and other women helped to organize it; 200 women and 40 men attended; “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal.” – Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions; called for an end to all laws that discriminated against women; demanded women be allowed to enter the all-male world of: trades, professions, businesses; Stanton demanded women’s suffrage: the right to vote
Susan B. Anthony:
worked for women’s rights
pushed for temperance
called for equal pay for women
supported college training for girls
supported coeducation
with Stone held the first national women’s rights convention in MA
became lifelong friends with Stanton and led the women’s rights movement
with Stanton started The Revolution weekly newspaper, which ran for 5 years and passionately focused on women’s rights
helped win the vote for women in several states
19th Amendment (women’s suffrage) was called the Susan B. Anthony Amendment
Elizabeth Blackwell:
rejected by more than 20 colleges
finally accepted by Geneva College in NY
graduated at the head of her class
became first woman to receive a medical degree in the U.S.
won acceptance and fame as a doctor
Mary Ann Shadd Cary: first African American woman in the U.S. to earn a law degree
Maria Mitchell:
discovered a comet in 1847 when she was only 19 y.o.
became a professor of astronomy
was the first woman elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Catherine Beecher and Emma Hart Willard believed women should be educated for their traditional roles in life, and were the first to passionately convince people that women could be capable teachers
Beecher wrote A Treatise on Domestic Economy, which gave instructions on: children, cooking, health matters
Milwaukee College for Women set up courses based on Beecher’s book
Emma Willard: educated herself in subjects considered suitable for only boys (math, science); established the Troy Female Seminary in NY that taught: math, history, geography, physics, homemaking skills
What was the culture / attitude / emotion of the North in the mid-1800s?
was a land of “progress” and sometimes revolutionary change
most people in the U.S. have always valued inventiveness and progress
Americans have felt a dissatisfaction and restlessness when things stay as they are too much
the North was the most restless
the North appeared traditional, but it had a spirit of bustle and hustle; its people were industrious:
northerners opened up the wilderness between the Appalachians and the Mississippi
they opened up the area from the Ohio River to parts of the Great Lakes
northerners established farmsteads and towns that were growing into large and important cities
foreigners from traditional Europe noted that Americans didn’t have time for leisure or entertainment
northerners worked 6 days a week
even Sunday wasn’t a day for pleasure: Americans “worked” hard going to revivals, services, and reading the Bible
What were two reforms (besides the Women's Movement, Abolitionist Movement, and public education)? Describe them. Choose any two.
The Temperance Movement:
Americans were quite fond of alcoholic beverages like beer, wine, whiskey and rum (liquor)
alcohol abuse: a pattern of drinking alcohol too much so that it hurts the person’s family, job, and health
too much alcohol poisons and impairs a person’s mind, emotions, actions, and health (liver)
alcohol abuse was common in the early-1800s, especially in the West and among urban workers
reformers blamed alcohol for: crime, breakup of families, poverty
Temperance crusaders warned people of liquor’s dangers with: pamphlets, revival-style rallies, lectures
many called for outlawing the production, importation, possession, and use of alcoholic drinks
Maine banned alcoholic beverages in 1851 and many states followed, but those laws got repealed
Susan B. Anthony called for college training for girls and coeducation: the teaching of boys and girls together
dozens of new colleges were formed during this age of reform: Ashmun Institute (1854): the first college for African Americans, located in Pennsylvania; Oberlin College (1833): the first college in America to accept women and one of the first to accept African Americans; located in Ohio; Mount Holyoke (1837): the nation’s first permanent women’s college opened by a teacher named Mary Lyon; located in Massachusetts
Disability Reforms–
Thomas Gallaudet: developed a method to educate people who were hearing impaired; opened the Hartford School for the Deaf in Connecticut in 1817
Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe: helped teach those who were visually impaired; developed books with large raised letters that people with sight impairments could “read” with their fingers; in Boston he headed the Perkins Institute: a school for the blind
Mental Illness and Prison Reforms
Dorothea Dix: as a young schoolteacher she visited prisons in 1841; she found that prisoners were living in inhumane conditions: chained to walls, little or no clothing, unheated cells; she also found that some inmates weren’t guilty of a crime because they were mentally ill; she made it her life’s work to educate the public about poor conditions for both prisoners and the mentally ill—this led to the establishment of hospitals for the mentally ill in the North and 9 states in the South; later, she helped organize large numbers of women to serve as military nurses for the Union (the North) in the Civil War
Prison and Punishment Reforms:
a separate movement worked to improve conditions in prisons or encourage non-imprisonment; make conditions more humane for those who deserve jail; direct people to moral reform rather than punishment if they don’t deserve jail; another movement sought to abolish (get rid of) the death penalty
Why did the Irish come to the U.S. in the mid-1800s? Describe what caused them to emigrate from Ireland.
Great Famine / the Great Hunger / the Bad Life:
1845-1849 in Ireland
cause: potato blight (microorganism disease/infection)
resulted in mass famine (an extreme shortage of food) and starvation
1 million people died in Ireland
100,000 people died outside of Ireland because of it
1 million people emigrated from Ireland (most immigrated to the U.S.)
Ireland’s population fell by ~23%
today there are more people of Irish descent in the United States than in Ireland
most Irish immigrants remained in the cities:
had to take the lowest paying and most dangerous jobs (factories, manual labor, laying rail lines)
lived in the worst parts of major cities: disease-ridden ghettos
many died from disease, hard labor, and bad liquor
German and Scandinavian immigrants left the East for the frontier West
settled on land and farmed