Westward Expansion, Reform, and Women’s Rights, 1840-1860

History 37, Summer 2014Chapter 5

Questions to Consider:

• How did women experience and participate in Westward expansion?

• What role did the Second Great Awakening play in the rise of moral reform societies?

• What is the relationship between the movement for abolitionism and the movement for women’s rights?

The Oregon Trail, 1840s

The Second Great Awakening, 1820s-1840s

• Focus on perfectionism and sin• Many believed that the second coming of

Christ was imminent; society must be reformed as well as the individual

• Stimulated many reform movements in the early-mid nineteenth century

The Shakers, 1780s-1860s• Believed in spiritual

equality and simplicity in dress, conduct, demeanor

• Founded by Mother Ann Lee – believed that God was both male and female; marriage based on subjugation of women and thus violated divine law

• Name “shaker” derived from their dancing, which was used during worship.

• Preached celibacy, so the church relied on steady stream of converts.

Mormon Exodus, 1830s – 1840sJoseph Smith (pictured at right)

The Temperance Movement, 1840s-1890s• Male drunkenness a sign of

moral failure and a violation of the marital bargain.

• Women as the virtuous and pious centers of the household, task themselves with policing alcohol and alcohol consumption.

• Temperance movement allowed women to criticize their husbands in the context of the cult of domesticity (idea of true womanhood).

Nineteenth-century moral reform movements

• Grounded in religious (and maternal) duty, many middle-class American women committed themselves to social activism geared towards ridding society of sin.

• Areas of focus: prostitution reform, temperance, personal health

Seneca Falls Convention, July 1848• The birthplace of the women’s

rights movement• Elizabeth Cady Stanton,

Lucrietta Mott, and others meet in Seneca Falls, New York to discuss the “social, civil, and religious condition of Woman” in 1848

• Approximately 300 people attended (men and women)

• The “Declaration of Sentiments” was drafted and debated by attendees. Women’s suffrage became one of the most contentious issues presented at the convention. Why do you think that is?

The Beginning of Women’s Rights, 1840s• Some nineteenth-century

reformers (particularly those active within the abolitionist movement) begin to challenge the dominant ideologies of womanhood and suggest that women (as American citizens) should also have access to individual rights.

• English radical Mary Wollstonecraft first articulates a doctrine of women’s rights in 1792 (pictured at the right)

• Movement for women’s rights a slow and constantly evolving process; started with women's economic rights

• Many reformers are questioning the “natural state of women”, as well as the political and economic rights that they lack.

Text of “The Declaration of Sentiments”

• http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/senecafalls.asp

Women and the abolitionist movement, 1820s-1860s

• Support for the abolition of slavery linked to religious conviction that owning slaves was a sin– Not all abolitionists supported immediate liberation – Abolition of slavery ≠ civil liberties/citizenship rights

• Organization of abolitionist groups (regional and national): men led and organized, women in supporting roles

• The abolitionist movement splits in the 1830s-1840s over disagreements about women’s activism. – What role should women have within the movement? – Should women’s rights be addressed within a movement focused

on abolishing slavery?

The Abolitionist Movement fractures:

Garrisonian abolitionists • Named after William Lloyd Garrison

(of “The Liberator” fame) – formed the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1833

• The most radical abolitionist group, these individuals supported to include women as equal participants within the movement (campaigning, fundraising, protesting, etc. )

• Conflict (and eventual secession) between the North and South preoccupies the country after 1860.

Non-Garrisonian abolitionists• Supported by Frederick

Douglass and others• Insisted the issue of

women’s rights be kept separate from the abolitionist movement

• Adopted a more political approach; Republican party founded in 1854

• Published in 1852; Best-selling novel of the 19th century

Harriet Beecher Stowe, circa 1845

Dred Scott v. Sandford, 1857• Background: Dred Scott purchased

by Dr. John Emerson in Missouri, but lived in both Illinois and Wisconsin/Minnesota territory between 1836 – 1838

• Scott sues Emerson’s widow (and then her brother John Sanford) for his freedom on the grounds of his owners violating the Missouri Compromise.

• Supreme Court rules:• African Americans are not

citizens and thus have no power to sue in a federal court.

• The U.S. government has no power to regulate slavery in territories/states introduced after 1787 – thus Missouri Compromise is unconstitutional.

Abraham Lincoln

• Personal views on slavery• The 1858 Lincoln-Douglas

debates make him famous• Wins the presidential

election of 1860 without carrying a single southern state

• Southern states begin to secede in December of 1860