Antebellum Reform 19th Century

The prison reforms of the early nineteenth century was a revolutionary step in the modern era of prison protocol. Before pre-prison reforms, the staff at the prisons beat the inmates for disciplinary actions. The inmates were confined to a wide variety of places including closets, pens, cages, cellars, and stalls. Women children and the mentally insane were all housed in the same buildings. The purpose of the prison reforms was to make the prisons more humane and acceptable for human kind.

The antebellum period was full of social reform movements based on the urge to eradicate evil and improve human conditions in society. Despite the attempt to deal with a wide variety of reforms to provide positive changes to society these reform movements were met with varying degrees of success. This essay will focus on five of the major social reform movements of that era discussing their accomplishments, failures and impacts on America as a whole. They are the reforms of abolition, women’s suffrage, temperance, institutional and educational reforms. The reform movements of the 1830’s and 1840’s were largely due to humanitarian reasons because of a period of Enlightenment in the previous century which emphasized rational over

The Antebellum Era is known as the time period between the Missouri Compromise of 1820 to the Civil War. Sectionalism became an apparent trend in the nation, showing that the interests of the north greatly varied from the interests of the south. Issues with tariff placements and slavery strengthened sectional divides during the Antebellum Period.

After 1815, a women’s status in society was shaped both by the “market revolution” and the “Second Great Awakening”. The “market revolution” was a drastic change in the nation's economy through transportation, education, legal reforms. Examples of these reforms would include the creation of canals, roads, railroads, and the technology needed to commute between places, an increase in teacher wages, school terms, and curriculum, and the spreading awareness of massive movements such as the temperance, abolitionist, and prison reform movement. The “Second Great Awakening” was a revival of religious spirit that attracted social minorities, such as women, African-Americans,and native Americans, that produced many new sects of Protestantism, such

While some citizens of the United States, between 1825 and 1850, believed that reform was foolish and that the nation should stick to its old conduct, reformists in this time period still sought to make the United States a more ideally democratic nation. This was an age of nationalism and pride, and where there was pride in one’s country, there was the aspiration to improve one’s country even further. Many new reformist and abolitionist groups began to form, all attempting to change aspects of the United States that the respective groups thought to be unfair or unjust. Some groups, such as lower and middle class women and immigrants, sought to improve rights within the county, while other reformers aspired to change the American education

The Second Great Awakening emphasizes on the ability of individuals to change their lives caused a wide variety of reforms. It changed the idea over schooling, theology, and how women were treated. The church began to appreciate women more and were becoming more equal as women were given roled in faith. However, sectionalism and nationalism grew throughout the Americas. It inspired the reforms like women’s rights movement and abolition, and also led to the people voting on slavery where popular sovereignty was allowed, which led to the Kansas-Nebraska Act. After the War of 1812, Americans had a strong sense of pride or nationalism after their win. This continued throughout the period. The main reason for this continuity was that it demonstrated America’s will to defend, earning the young nation newfound respect from

The Antebellum Era during the mid 1800s was a time in which the United States began to strengthen itself as a nation through a number of economic and social reforms. With the creation of the New York Stock Exchange, New York City quickly became the center of finance around the world and allowed the United States to become the world’s first emerging market; as a result investors from all over the world were pouring money into the nation’s economy as everyone wanted to buy stocks and invest in cities all over the US.; With its high financial status, New York became the most appealing city in the country to invest in and one such man who invested a lot of his wealth into the city and more specifically, the borough of Brooklyn was William S. Packer.

From 1815 to 1850, there was a period of rapid change that held The Second Great Awakening, which inspired the reform movements. America was changing during the 1800’s, Protestant revival was influencing new ideas and the idea of eradicating sins in each community. Certain parts of American society benefited from the movements that applied to their gender, ethnicity, or problem. However, this doesn't mean that improvement was made. The U.S. failed to meet the expectations of the Declaration of Independence for certain aspects of people by 1850 because political, social, and economic rights were still restricted for immigrants and women that stopped them from advancing beyond expectations in society.

The second great awakening was a religious movement. It began around the 1790’s. It grew popular through Methodists and Baptists. It was led by the Preachers. Arising in the 1800s, it was one of the most significant occurrences in the history of American religion. Countless people were converted and many churches were changed and revived. Not only affecting religion, the movement influenced many other aspects such as prison reform, the women's rights movement, abolishment of slavery, advancements in literature, and reform in education. Women's roles in the church were greatly affected and they deeply encouraged the religious revival, setting up many organizations and charities.

The prisons purpose was to help inmates morally and fix their character instead of cruelly punishing them. It was popular during the 1800’s for prisons to be a place of reform. The punishment of hard labor was used to shape the inmates into self-disciplined individuals. Two methods of prison reform used in the 1800’s were the Pennsylvania system, or the Separate System and the Auburn system, or the Silent System.

In the 19th century, the Second Great Awakening occurred which lead the American people to change their opinion on religion. This caused a multitude of individuals to convert and change churches. Due to the refocusing of religious beliefs, it resulted in numerous realizing the flaws and defects within the country. They started believing enormous changes were needed in order for salvation. This influenced the formation of social movements such as women’s rights, temperance and the abolition of slavery and many others. The social movement would have such an impact on society that America would change as the one we know today.

The correction system cannot be seriously discussed without addressing prison reform. Escobedo, T. (2015) posits that ?Prison reform is the attempt to improve conditions inside prisons, establish a more effective penal system, or implement alternatives to incarceration.? During the previous centuries there was no attempt to rehabilitate prisoners. The sole purpose was punishment. Children, adults, and the mentally ill were all housed and chained together. During this time debtor?s prisons were rampant. In such cases where the poor could not pay their debts, they were thrown in debtor?s prison where they remained until they could work off their debts or a benefactor would pay on their behalf. An overwhelming segment of prisoners during those times was the mentally ill. They were housed in squalid, filthy conditions, and lived on a subsistence diet of putrid food not fit for human consumption. One of the earliest attempts at

Following the eighteenth century, an idealistic social reform movement swept the Northeastern United States. This idealistic movement known as “Romantic reform” in the United States tracked its influences to the religious motivation, which at that time was politically and socially conservative.” (Thomas) Additionally, “The Second Great Awakening,” Evangelical conservative religious movement with beginnings within the United States as the former colonies “strengthen Christian character and try to save this country from infidelity and ruin, by ”irreligious democrats.” (Thomas) Throughout the first few decades of the nineteenth century the reform movement were arranged and driven by the wealthy and middle-class Protestants, whose priority was moral reconstruction and redemption of the less prosperous. Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet proved to be one of those social reformers during this era, as he devoted his adult life to the salvation of “Deaf” people by means of education.

“Second Great Awakening was not focused simply on promotion individual conversions; it was also intended to reform human society, which was said by Lyman Beecher a champion of evangelic Christian revivalism” (Tindall and Shi 508). The United States, which was known for a nation of separation and church and state was swept with religious revivals during 1790 to 1830s known as the Second Great Awakening. From the Second Great Awakening in 1842, the United States was filled with different reform movement which was led by dreamers and activists who saw social injustice or immorality in the American society and wanted to fight to correct the sinful events that 's been happening (Tindall and Shin 528-529). One of the most widespread from all the reform movement that spread around the 19th and 20th century was the temperance movement due it being the common social problem in the United States. The Temperance movement “was an organized effort to encourage moderation in the consumption of intoxicating liquors or press for complete abstinence”(Chancellor). The temperance movement establishes due to the amount of alcohol an individual was consuming, it also brought different society and organization to help spread the word about the evil in consuming alcohol which was mainly established by women 's, which gave a rise to women 's rights by them expressing theirs considers on alcohol. It also gives a perspective how alcohol was affecting the

The concept of congregate care facilities was born. These facilities afforded society the ability to control and provide services for a greater number of its members. These facilities came in the forms of orphanages to house orphaned and abandoned children, hospitals for the sick, mental institutions for the mentally ill and workhouses/poorhouses for those that were unemployed or had no means of supporting themselves. Workhouses and jails soon overlapped. Because the poor could never pay a fine, jail became a