Summary
The Beecher’s and the Kingdom of God Lyman Beecher Was a Highly Praised Minister Who Wanted to Make America the Kingdom of Christ.
The Transformation of American Evangelicalism after 1800, Americans Moved Away from Calvinism Towards the Idea That Everyone Can Earn Redemption. Charles Grandison Finney and Modern Revivalism the Man Who Embodied That Movement Endorsed Free Will and Preached That Everyone Can Be Saved. The Appeal of Evangelicalism Evangelicalism Proved to Be a Potent Faith That Appealed to People from All Walks of Life. Women, Marriage, and Conversion Women Attended Churches at Higher Rates, Because This Movement Gave Them Freedom of Uncertainty. The Significance of the Second Great Awakening Protestantism Started to Dominate and Became the Main Form of Christianity.
Revivalism and the Social Order in the 1820S-30S Evangelical Activists Influenced Many Elements of Social Life. The Temperance Movement Lyman Beecher Was a Strong Advocate for the Temperance Movement and Co-founded the Temperance Society in 1826. Ideals of Women and the Family the Idea of a Woman as a Symbol of Domesticity Is Promoted by Evangelists. Expanding Public Roles for Women It Was Hardly Possible for Women to Maintain That Idea, So Evangelicalism Let Them Participate in Social Life. Protestants and Catholics Differences between Protestants and Catholics Grew, Often Resulting in Violence.
Visionaries Apart from Catholics, Evangelists Conflicted with Other Groups. The Unitarian Contribution despite Having Different Beliefs, Unitarians Made Great Contributions to Social Life. From Unitarianism to Transcendentalism Transcendentalists Sought for Connection with Nature. Utopian Communities Several Communities Tried to Have Utopian Lifestyles. The Mormon Experience Joseph Smith Founded the Mormon Community.
Abolitionism and Women’s Rights the Origins of the Abolitionist Movement the First Steps to an Immediate End of Slavery Were Inspired by Britain. The Spread of Abolitionism by 1832 William Lloyd Garrison Had Founded the American Anti-slavery Society and Published the Liberator. Opponents and Divisions Many Prominent Reformers Were against the Idea of Immediate Abolition. The Women’s Rights Movement — Women’s Rights Movement Was Launched. The Schism of 1840 – Anti-slavery Societies Became More Divided by Garrison’s Position on Women’s Rights.
Reform Shakes the Party System the Turn toward Politics Reformers Turned to Politics, the Maine Law Being Their First Success. Abolitionism and the Party System Antislavery Movement in Politics Began to Grow: James Birney Runs for President.
Reading Response
Reading this chapter gave me a much clearer view of how difficult it was for the abolitionists to fight the resistance. I now understand the connection between the suffrage and abolitionist movements in America and how the first grew from the second, as well as how the views of some abolitionists shifted from non-radical to radical. Walker’s opinion that whites should “throw away your fears and prejudices” and “treat us like men” (as cited in Davidson et al., 2018, p. 220), is a good example of these approaches.
The focus in the given section is on three main groups: abolitionists, blacks, and women. I realized that I had not thought about the similarities in their lives. Slaves were the ones who suffered most, but abolitionists were also attacked on occasion. They responded with further activities, such as forming the American Anti-Slavery Society. They thought slavery “to be a sin” and that southerners “should be convinced by moral suasion” (Davidson et al., 2018, p. 220). Women’s participation in antislavery discussions was much smaller, as they had almost no rights. This made them respond by launching a fight for equal rights, claiming that “all men and women are created equal” and “men should give women real power” (Davidson et al., 2018, p. 222).
At the end of the section the author claims that by the 1840s abolitionists became “a tiny minority” (Davidson et al., 2018, p. 222), but I have doubts about that part. Although abolitionist societies were scattered across the North, they were not “tiny”, and still had great importance in terms of advocating for an immediate end to slavery. They broke the silence that slaveholders tried so hard to keep.
References
Davidson, J. W., Heyrman, C. L., Lytle, M. H., & Stoff, M. B. (2018). US: A narrative history volume 1. New York: McGraw-Hill Education.