The reform impulse were movements originated decades before the American Civil War, leaded by volunteers in political and social groups who pursued a collective way of life due to the lack of a powerful national government. Several political clubs, religious groups, fraternal orders and other people with same ideals came up inspired by the antislavery sentiment. Some of their causes were focused on the improvement and balance of the society. The most important groups looked for women rights, the slavery abolition, the eradication of restricted education, the improvement of the conditions of wage workers and convicts inside prisons, and the achievement of a new organization of the society based in cooperation and more. (Foner 368).
Around one hundred reform communities were established decades before the Civil War. They were called utopian communities because they were considered impractical and impossible to realize. All of these groups went after more followers that can help their cause, developing strategies such as speeches that in many cases were international, the establishment of their own cooperative settlements, the collection of signatures and petitions, the use of pamphlets as propaganda and a strategy called “moral suasion”, that is the conversion of people to their cause. (Foner 369).
Many religious groups such as the Shakers and the Oneida arose in the nineteenth century. They were two of the most successful groups in that time. The Shakers were founded by Mother Ann Lee obtaining more than five thousand members. The first Shaker community was established in New York City in 1787 and they believed in a God with dual personality, male and female, stating that both sexes were spiritually equal. They attained followers by conversion and by adopting kids from orphanages. They refused the accumulation of private property but they achieved economical success through the commerce of vegetables, herbs and seeds. (Foner 371). The Oneida was founded in 1848 also in New York City by John Humphrey Noyes. He asserted that people can be extremely and perfectly moral and he affirmed that this group had achieved “purity of heart”.
The school reform was led by Horace Mann, a politician and lawyer who worked as a director of the state’s board of education. He believed in universal public education and pursued the establishment of common schools, arguing that it will balance the American society. In 1860 there were schools for children in the North that were tax supported. It was also an opportunity for many women that became teachers in these institutions. (Foner 376, 377)
The crusade against slavery inspired most of the reform movements in this century. “The first indication of the new spirit of abolitionism came in 1829 with the appearance of An Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World by David Walker, a free black who had been born in North Carolina and now operated a used clothing store in Boston”. (Foner 379). He viewed slavery as racial prejudice and called African Americans for an anti slavery mobilization. Hi was considered a threat by slaveholders and he was constantly persecuted by them. The antislavery movement diffused widely in the USA with the constantly use of propaganda, that allowed them to obtain more than one hundred thousand members in the North of the country. Most were common citizens but only a few had important positions such as the merchants Arthur and Lewis Tappan of New York. Another prominent who helped considerably was Theodore Weld who was a young minister who condemned slavery as a sin. He used religious methods to convert people to this cause, creating awareness among the population.
Most political groups gave speeches oriented to get the masses’ support, especially of the worker class. That time was characterized by the increasing industrialism and the expansion of the immigrants that contributed to the idea of the government to strengthen the society of the wealthiest whites, especially those who controlled the country. Howard Zinn calls it the myth of the “Jacksonian Democracy” or “the new politics of ambiguity”, designed “to give people a choice between two different parties and allow them, in a period of rebellion, to choose the slightly more democratic one”. (Zinn 161) The myth of the Jacksonian Democracy was created to get more allies, those with higher incomes and who can support their political party, but it was never thought to eradicate the poverty. It was clear that for this group, the idea of democracy was shaped by economic interests and it was not as the reform movements that tried to achieve a more uniform society.
Works Cited
Zinn, Howard. A People's History of The United States. (Vol. 1, New
York, 2003)
Foner, Eric. Give Me Liberty!: An American History. (Vol. 1, 2nd
Edition)
