Social Reforms, Social Movements, Role of Women in Society Social Reform
Any activist movement that betters the society. (ex. prison reform, mental illness, prohibition/temperance, suffrage, education
Prisons
­prisons in Pennsylvania took place of crude jails and lockups
­experiment to see if prisoners reflect on their sins in solitary confinement ­experiment dropped b/c prisoner suicides
­ASYLUM MOVEMENT: structure and discipline would bring out moral reform
­Auburn system in NY­ enforced rules of discipline while also providing moral instruction + work programs
Mental Illness
­Dorothea Dix­ social activist, discovered insane women were locked up in jail, alongside male criminals
­persuaded Mass. lawmakers to enlarge state hospital to accommodate indigent mental patients
­state legislators after another build new mental institutions + improve existing ­> mental patients receive pro. treatment at states expense
Prohibition/temperance
­moral exhortation ­> political action
­protestant ministers founded American Temperance Society: persuade drinkers to not drink
­Washingtonians(1840): recover alcoholics. alcoholism is disease needs treatment
­1840s­> successful, middle­class drinks water
­German and Irish immigrants against temperance
­factory owners + politicians join reform b/c prevents crime and poverty + increases workers output
­Women’s Christian Temperance Union
Education
­Thomas Gallaudet founded school for deaf
­Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe­ school for Blind
­by 1850­ special schools modeled after them
­motive for public education for all: fear for growing numbers of uneducated poor affects future of republic
● free common common=public schools
­Horace Mann­ #1 leading advocate of public school movement­> improved schools, increased teacher prep, longer school year, + child attendance
● moral education
­wanted principles of morality, William Holmes Mcguffey created elem. textbooks ­> became basis of reading and moral instruction in many schools ­> hard work, punctuality, and sobriety(the kind of behaviors needed in an emerging industrial society.

­Roman Catholics founded private schools for Catholic and foreign born ● higher education
● republican motherhood The Changing American
Family and Women’s
Rights Movement

● cult of domesticity*

● origins of women’s rights movement

● Seneca Falls
Convention

­Second Great Awakening fuels educational reform. Many small colleges are founded, many admit women
­preserve