Essay on Shaker Communities

The Second Great Awakening laid the foundations of the development of present-day religious beliefs and establishments, moral views, and democratic ideals in the United States. Beginning back in late eighteenth century and lasting until the middle of the nineteenth century,1 this Protestant awakening sought to reach out the un-churched and bring people to a much more personal and vivid experience of Christianity. Starting on the Southern frontier and soon spreading to the Northeast, the Second Great Awakening has also been associated as a response against the growing liberalism in religion - skepticism, deism, and rational Christianity.2 Although the movement is well-known to be

The Shaker's Community is just like any other organization we participate in today. Maybe they felt as if the community was the only way to join a holy family. A quick fact, the Shakers did not believe in giving birth. However, everyone was treated like a brother or sister. The ultimate reason was to have the benefits and desires of heaven on Earth. In order to have heaven on Earth, the Shakers understood that changing lifestyles was the only way it would happen.

Religious reformers believed that they should establish estranged communities that lead to equality, liberty, and prosperity among all. The best examples were the Shakers found by Ann Lee, an English immigrant. The members of the community worked together to own their own property. They

While his work did not engage directly with the topic, a tinge of anti-intellectualism was fostered within the movement this book examined. In Spiritual Mobilization’s magazine, Faith and Freedom, the editor devoted an entire issue to confronting clergymen who supported the Social Gospel, a movement which he claimed was led by, “a small, unusually articulate minority who feel political power is the way to save the world. . .” If the articles of the 1930’s demonstrated a distrust of the “unusually articulate,” the embracing of religious identity and language publicly by the Eisenhower administration had created an atmosphere in the 1950's whereby the Gideons International, Inc. was actively trying to influence curriculum in U.S. schools. Traveling preachers successfully utilized marketing techniques to blend entertainment, education, and religion into a single message. Sadly, that single message forbade the kind of discourse or dissent which fosters intellectual growth. Rather, the libertarian ideologies, which had inspired the original rebellion against the Social Gospel, had come to full fruition in snuffing out dissenters and making commonplace the existence of state-sanctioned

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

In the book Shopkeeper’s millennium by Paul E. Johnson, it’s a new explanation of the relationships between the economy ,religion and politics during the Second Great awakening. Revivals mostly seemed as a spiritual disorder. This all happened among the working class. Johnson talks about the political practices in the beginning between the elites and the reform movements until the revival evened up in the Rochester community. Charles Finney studied the law practice first but them in 1821 he got in a religious conversation. After that he dropped his law practice and went to become an evangelist , he then was licensed by the Presbyterians.

Certain Antebellum movements ceased to exist due to their unpopular opinions at the time, where not many individuals were exponents. The deciding factor in whether the campaigns prospered was if their principles relayed within most Americans. The Oneida Community essentially dissipated as a result of its complicated, unjust system. Initially, the Oneida’s utilized a communal marriage method, dubbed “Complex Marriage,” in which individuals who had reached John Humphrey Noyes’ version of unorthodox perfectionism, would be able to initiate in sexual intercourse without sin. Noyes further promoted male continence, in which “men would not ejaculate, thereby freeing women from pregnancy and the difficulty of determining paternity when they had many

After 1815, the female was viewed in a more respectful persona in society. Women’s rights were beginning to grow. They were helping more in religious growth, and helping in the abolition of slavery. “On every principle of natural justice, as well as by the nature of our institutions, she is as fully entitled as man to vote and to be eligible to office.” (Document F). Many females were involved in the growth of religion, including the Second Great Awakening. With the females being the ones who take the children to church, they were prone to having a deeper belief for their religion. And with that, they would try to inspire religious growth. The Second Great Awakening spurred reform, prison, church, temperance, abolition, women’s rights, and Christianizing Indians. With women fighting for what they believe in, the women were finding themselves to have a new found respect; from both themselves and men. Document E illustrates this by females walking down a street with a sense of confidence.

In the book, “ Shopkeeper's millennium” by Paul E. Johnson, he argues that the American revivalism in the nineteenth century was a product of class conflict, not individual social insecurity. In his book, Johnson marks the social beginnings of revival religion by analyzing Rochester, New York the development of classes as community moves towards industrialization, and examines the role of religion in this transformation. Johnson compares the working and middle class cultures of the city through the analysis of social, economic, and religious changes. The working class were refusing to obey their masters, but the Second Great Awakening calmed them down and they accepted the middle-class viewpoints. Johnson feels that revivals had little

Just as groups had formed against the consumption of alcohol, isolated religious groups began to form against everyone but themselves. Called “Utopian Communities”, religious groups were created that challenged society and it’s religions, which is very similar to the Evangelical movement. There were hundreds of these communities, with one of the most popular being the “Shakers”.9 The Shakers believed in the complete equality of male and females, but at the price of being completely celibate. The only way there could be new members was if there were converts or children who would come into a Shaker village. Most of these utopian communities shared an idea of millennialism, which talks about Jesus returning and a new era of the world beginning. The social impact of this is blatantly clear; many more religious groups were being created, rather than a few sects of religion.

The 3 of these articles discuss the transition from the old age society where individuals lived in urban communities and go to church every Sunday and praise Jesus, individuals would save up money as well, into the new modern business world in the 1920s where it had more advertisements, which made almost any product more valuable that it was. These advertisement strategies kept increasing more consumers and was proven to be effective. This transition changed into a more civilized system, it changed the way individuals lived.

In nineteenth century America, women were not given the same rights and freedoms as their spouses/ men. Women were expected to be submissive to their husbands though they did have some authority within the private sphere. The private sphere is comprised of the home and family. During this time, women were responsible for being a mother and wife; however, with the Second Great Awakening, women were being to have more freedoms and responsibilities. New roles allowed for mothers to teach their children religion in their homes and women took up an interest in attending religious revival meetings (Hewitt, Lawson 357). A fair number of women were enticed with the religious revival movement because it allowed women to leave their private sphere and participate in the public sphere. Women were given an opportunity to conjugate with each other and practice their beliefs that allowed them to slowly partake in the reform (Hewitt, Lawson 352). The religious revival meetings attracted thousands to attend, most of who were women, and “pray” in a group (Frances Trollope – Description of a Revival Meeting, 1832). In Document 11.7, Frances Trollope, English author,

In the Antebellum time period, there were four voices that carefully discussed and showed their beliefs of sex to the society. One of the voices was known as Evangelical Christianity. Christian ministers and Lyman Beecher’s, strong ideas and passionate efforts were shown to try and get society to follow their ideas of sex. In their eyes, lust was known to be a deadly sin during the Nineteenth Century (Horowitz, 8). In order for them to control society members, they expressed and advocated that if one goes against the Christian view of sex and lacks morality, then he or she will be lead to the devil (Beecher, 45). Evangelical Christianity supporters such as Lyman Beecher believed in using the church, Bible, law and institutions to control how individuals acted upon sex as well as how sex was seen in society as

In Shaftesbury's lifetime, Christianity's social message was particularly endangered. The Industrial Revolution had begun in the period immediately preceding the Victorian era, and continued with remorseless rapidity throughout the Victorian period: this had led to massive inequalities of wealth, combined with the total erosion of traditional ways of life in the rural period, causing the displaced poor to move to cities. Shaftesbury's

Out of this silent “escapist” society rose a group of nonconformists who rejected what they felt were unauthentic, standardized lives. These nonconformists sought spiritual meaning in life instead of going along with America’s newfound affluence and quest for materialism. Their lifestyle was considered scandalous to conservatives who called them radical and dangerous. Many of those in the older generation who had lived through the Depression could not understand why young people opposed work, especially when there were plenty of good-paying jobs