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McDougal Littell- The Americans
Chapter 8- Reforming American Society 

Section 8.1

  • Charles Grandison Finney- The most famous preacher of his era, Finney inspired emotional religious faith, using a speaking style that was as much high drama as prayer or reason. 
  • Second Great Awakening- A 19th-century religious movement in which individual responsibility for seeking salvation was emphasized, along with the need for personal and social improvement.
  • Revival- an emotional meeting designed to awaken religious faith through impassioned preaching and prayer.
  • Ralph Waldo Emerson- New England writer who nurtured pride in the emerging American culture y practicing Transcendentalism
  • Transcendentalism- a philosophical and literary movement that emphasized living a simple life and celebrated t6he truth found in nature and in personal emotion and imagination.
  • Civil disobedience- the peaceful refusal to disobey laws
  • Utopian community- experimental communities formed in the attempt to create a perfect place
  • Dorothea Dix- joined the movement for social reform by setting up public hospitals for the mentally ill and reforming prisons.





Section 8.2

  • Abolition- the call to outlaw slavery
  • William Lloyd Garrison- the most radical white abolitionist of his era, was active in religious movements in Massachusetts and was the editor of his own newspaper called The Liberator.
  • Emancipation- the freeing of the salves.
  • David Walker- a free black, advised blacks to fight for freedom rather than to wait for slave owners to end slavery.
  • Federick Douglas- He was born into slavery in 1817, but escaped to the North as a young man. He became a speaker for the Anti-slavery Society and worked with Garrison for a short time.
  • Nat turner- He believed he had been chosen to lead his people from slavery and led an unsuccessful revolt in August 1831.
  • Antebellum-  the period before a war especially the American civil war
  • Gag rule- 1835 law passed by Southern congress which made it illegal to talk of abolition or ant-slavery arguments in Congress.

Section 8.3

  • Elizabeth Cady Stanton- 1815-1902 women;s suffrage leader who helped organized the first women’s rights convention in 1848
  • Lucretia Mott- quaker activist in both the abolitionist and wome’s movements; with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, she was a principal irganizer of the Senca Falls Convention in 1848.
  • Cult of Domesticity- idealized view of women and home; women, self-less caregiver for children,refuge for husbands
  • Temperance Movement- An organized campaign to eliminate alcohol consumption
  • Sara and Angelina Grimke- Sisters who set out on a lecture tour to see what they have seen of slavery. THey belived they were born with god-given rights and should be allowed to use them. Anti-slavery and pro-equal rights for women.
  • Seneca Falls convention- 1848 woman’s right meeting at which the Declaration of RIghts and Sentiments was presented.
  • Sojourner Truth- a former slave who spoke against the evils of slavery and also for women’s rights. Her most famous speech was called “Ain’t I a Woman?”
  • Women reformers expanded their efforts from movements such as abolition and temperance to include women’s rights.
  • Women Mobilize for Reform Despite such limits, women actively participated in all the important reform movements of the 19th century.
  • In 1836 Angelina Grimké published An Appeal to Christian Women of the South, in which she called upon women to “overthrow this horrible system of oppression and cruelty.” Women abolitionists also raised money, distributed literature, and collected signatures for petitions to Congress.
  • Women’s Rights Movement Emerges The various reform movements of the mid-19th century fed the growth of the women’s movement by providing women with increased opportunities to act outside the home.

Section 8.4

  • Cottage industry- system in which manufactures provided the materials for goods to be produced at home
  • Master- the most experienced artisan
  • Journeyman- a skilled worker employed by a master
  • Apperntice- a young worker learning the craft
  • Strike- a work stoppage in order to force an employer to respond to demands
  • National Trades’ Union- formed in 1834 by journeyman’s organizations in six industries, this was the largest trade union at the time and lasted until 1837. 
  • At first, Susan found the factory work dispiriting, but she made friends, and was proud of the wages she sent home. Before «Susan» and other girls began to leave the farms for New England’s textile mills, women had spun and sewn most of their families’ clothing from raw fibers. Moving production from the home to the factory split families, created new communities, and transformed traditional relationships between employers and employees. The textile industry pioneered the new manufacturing techniques that would affect rules and behavior required of most American workers.

  • Though women did most of this work, men and children sometimes helped too. The participants in this cottage industry brought the fin-ished articles to the manufacturer, who paid them by the piece and gave them new materials for the next batch of work.



  • Cabot Lowell opened their weaving factories in Waltham and later Lowell, Massachusetts , their power looms replaced the cottage industries. Mechanizing the entire process and housing the tools in the same place slashed the production time, as well as the cost, of textile manufacture. By the 1830s, the company that Lowell and his partners had formed owned eight factories in Massachusetts with over 6,000 employees, at an investment of over $6 million. EARLY FACTORIES Textiles led the way, but other areas of manufacture also shift-ed from homes to factories.

  • The rapid spread of factory production revolutionized industry. In addition, new machines allowed unskilled workers to perform tasks that once had employed trained artisans. Unskilled artisans shifted from farm work to boring and repeti-tive factory work and to the tight restrictions imposed by factory managers. Nowhere were these restrictions more rigid than in the factory town of Lowell, Massachusetts.
  • Farm Worker to Factory WorkerThe Lowell  Mill owners hired females because they could pay them lower wages than men who did simi-lar jobs. In a letter written in 1846 to her father in New Hampshire, 16-year-old Mary Paul expressed her satisfaction with her situation at Lowell. Like Mary Paul, who eventually left factory work to pursue other work, most female workers stayed at Lowell for only a few years.
  • CONDITIONS AT LOWELL- These hours probably didn’t seem long to farm girls, but heat, darkness, and poor ventilation in the factories contributed to discomfort and illness. After gulping a noon meal, workers now had to rush back to the weaving rooms to avoid fines for lateness. Mill workers began to organize. In 1834, the Lowell mills announced a 15 percent wage cut.
  • Eight hundred mill girls conducted a strike, a work stoppage in order to force an employer to respond to demands. STRIKES AT LOWELL Under the heading «UNION IS POWER,» the Lowell Mills strikers of 1834 issued a proclamation declaring that they would not return to work «unless our wages are continued to us as they have been.» For its part, the company threatened to recruit local women to fill the strikers’ jobs. Criticized by the Lowell press and clergy, most of the strikers agreed to return to work at reduced wages. In 1836, Lowell mill workers struck again, this time over an increase in their board charges that was equivalent to a 12.5 percent pay cut.
  • Twice as many women participated as had two years earlier. In the 1840s, the mill girls took their concerns to the political arena. Massachusetts state legislature for a ten-hour workday. The proposed legislation failed, but the Lowell Association was able to help defeat a local legislator who opposed the bill.
  • Employers won most of these strikes because they could easily replace unskilled workers with strikebreakers who would toil long hours for low wages. Many strikebreakers were immigrants who had fled even worse poverty in Europe.
  • Irish immigrants faced bitter prejudice, both because they were Roman Catholic and because they were poor. NATIONAL TRADES’ UNION In their earliest attempts to organize, journeymen formed trade unions specific to each trade. During the 1830s, the trade unions in different towns began to join together to establish unions for such trades as carpentry, shoemaking, weaving, printing, and comb making. By means of these unions, the workers sought to standardize wages and conditions throughout each industry.
  • In a few cities the trade unions united to form federations. 1834, for example, journeymen’s organizations from six industries formed the largest of these unions, the National Trades’ Union, which lasted until 1837. The trade-union movement faced fierce oppo-sition from bankers and owners, who threatened the unions by form-ing associations of their own. In addition, workers’ efforts to organize were at first hampered by court decisions declaring strikes illegal.





McDougal Littell- The Americans
Chapter 8- Reforming American Society 

Section 8.1

  • Charles Grandison Finney- The most famous preacher of his era, Finney inspired emotional religious faith, using a speaking style that was as much high drama as prayer or reason. 
  • Second Great Awakening- A 19th-century religious movement in which individual responsibility for seeking salvation was emphasized, along with the need for personal and social improvement.
  • Revival- an emotional meeting designed to awaken religious faith through impassioned preaching and prayer.
  • Ralph Waldo Emerson- New England writer who nurtured pride in the emerging American culture y practicing Transcendentalism
  • Transcendentalism- a philosophical and literary movement that emphasized living a simple life and celebrated t6he truth found in nature and in personal emotion and imagination.
  • Civil disobedience- the peaceful refusal to disobey laws
  • Utopian community- experimental communities formed in the attempt to create a perfect place
  • Dorothea Dix- joined the movement for social reform by setting up public hospitals for the mentally ill and reforming prisons.





Section 8.2

  • Abolition- the call to outlaw slavery
  • William Lloyd Garrison- the most radical white abolitionist of his era, was active in religious movements in Massachusetts and was the editor of his own newspaper called The Liberator.
  • Emancipation- the freeing of the salves.
  • David Walker- a free black, advised blacks to fight for freedom rather than to wait for slave owners to end slavery.
  • Federick Douglas- He was born into slavery in 1817, but escaped to the North as a young man. He became a speaker for the Anti-slavery Society and worked with Garrison for a short time.
  • Nat turner- He believed he had been chosen to lead his people from slavery and led an unsuccessful revolt in August 1831.
  • Antebellum-  the period before a war especially the American civil war
  • Gag rule- 1835 law passed by Southern congress which made it illegal to talk of abolition or ant-slavery arguments in Congress.

Section 8.3

  • Elizabeth Cady Stanton- 1815-1902 women;s suffrage leader who helped organized the first women’s rights convention in 1848
  • Lucretia Mott- quaker activist in both the abolitionist and wome’s movements; with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, she was a principal irganizer of the Senca Falls Convention in 1848.
  • Cult of Domesticity- idealized view of women and home; women, self-less caregiver for children,refuge for husbands
  • Temperance Movement- An organized campaign to eliminate alcohol consumption
  • Sara and Angelina Grimke- Sisters who set out on a lecture tour to see what they have seen of slavery. THey belived they were born with god-given rights and should be allowed to use them. Anti-slavery and pro-equal rights for women.
  • Seneca Falls convention- 1848 woman’s right meeting at which the Declaration of RIghts and Sentiments was presented.
  • Sojourner Truth- a former slave who spoke against the evils of slavery and also for women’s rights. Her most famous speech was called “Ain’t I a Woman?”
  • Women reformers expanded their efforts from movements such as abolition and temperance to include women’s rights.
  • Women Mobilize for Reform Despite such limits, women actively participated in all the important reform movements of the 19th century.
  • In 1836 Angelina Grimké published An Appeal to Christian Women of the South, in which she called upon women to “overthrow this horrible system of oppression and cruelty.” Women abolitionists also raised money, distributed literature, and collected signatures for petitions to Congress.
  • Women’s Rights Movement Emerges The various reform movements of the mid-19th century fed the growth of the women’s movement by providing women with increased opportunities to act outside the home.

Section 8.4

  • Cottage industry- system in which manufactures provided the materials for goods to be produced at home
  • Master- the most experienced artisan
  • Journeyman- a skilled worker employed by a master
  • Apperntice- a young worker learning the craft
  • Strike- a work stoppage in order to force an employer to respond to demands
  • National Trades’ Union- formed in 1834 by journeyman’s organizations in six industries, this was the largest trade union at the time and lasted until 1837. 
  • At first, Susan found the factory work dispiriting, but she made friends, and was proud of the wages she sent home. Before «Susan» and other girls began to leave the farms for New England’s textile mills, women had spun and sewn most of their families’ clothing from raw fibers. Moving production from the home to the factory split families, created new communities, and transformed traditional relationships between employers and employees. The textile industry pioneered the new manufacturing techniques that would affect rules and behavior required of most American workers.

  • Though women did most of this work, men and children sometimes helped too. The participants in this cottage industry brought the fin-ished articles to the manufacturer, who paid them by the piece and gave them new materials for the next batch of work.



  • Cabot Lowell opened their weaving factories in Waltham and later Lowell, Massachusetts , their power looms replaced the cottage industries. Mechanizing the entire process and housing the tools in the same place slashed the production time, as well as the cost, of textile manufacture. By the 1830s, the company that Lowell and his partners had formed owned eight factories in Massachusetts with over 6,000 employees, at an investment of over $6 million. EARLY FACTORIES Textiles led the way, but other areas of manufacture also shift-ed from homes to factories.

  • The rapid spread of factory production revolutionized industry. In addition, new machines allowed unskilled workers to perform tasks that once had employed trained artisans. Unskilled artisans shifted from farm work to boring and repeti-tive factory work and to the tight restrictions imposed by factory managers. Nowhere were these restrictions more rigid than in the factory town of Lowell, Massachusetts.
  • Farm Worker to Factory WorkerThe Lowell  Mill owners hired females because they could pay them lower wages than men who did simi-lar jobs. In a letter written in 1846 to her father in New Hampshire, 16-year-old Mary Paul expressed her satisfaction with her situation at Lowell. Like Mary Paul, who eventually left factory work to pursue other work, most female workers stayed at Lowell for only a few years.
  • CONDITIONS AT LOWELL- These hours probably didn’t seem long to farm girls, but heat, darkness, and poor ventilation in the factories contributed to discomfort and illness. After gulping a noon meal, workers now had to rush back to the weaving rooms to avoid fines for lateness. Mill workers began to organize. In 1834, the Lowell mills announced a 15 percent wage cut.
  • Eight hundred mill girls conducted a strike, a work stoppage in order to force an employer to respond to demands. STRIKES AT LOWELL Under the heading «UNION IS POWER,» the Lowell Mills strikers of 1834 issued a proclamation declaring that they would not return to work «unless our wages are continued to us as they have been.» For its part, the company threatened to recruit local women to fill the strikers’ jobs. Criticized by the Lowell press and clergy, most of the strikers agreed to return to work at reduced wages. In 1836, Lowell mill workers struck again, this time over an increase in their board charges that was equivalent to a 12.5 percent pay cut.
  • Twice as many women participated as had two years earlier. In the 1840s, the mill girls took their concerns to the political arena. Massachusetts state legislature for a ten-hour workday. The proposed legislation failed, but the Lowell Association was able to help defeat a local legislator who opposed the bill.
  • Employers won most of these strikes because they could easily replace unskilled workers with strikebreakers who would toil long hours for low wages. Many strikebreakers were immigrants who had fled even worse poverty in Europe.
  • Irish immigrants faced bitter prejudice, both because they were Roman Catholic and because they were poor. NATIONAL TRADES’ UNION In their earliest attempts to organize, journeymen formed trade unions specific to each trade. During the 1830s, the trade unions in different towns began to join together to establish unions for such trades as carpentry, shoemaking, weaving, printing, and comb making. By means of these unions, the workers sought to standardize wages and conditions throughout each industry.
  • In a few cities the trade unions united to form federations. 1834, for example, journeymen’s organizations from six industries formed the largest of these unions, the National Trades’ Union, which lasted until 1837. The trade-union movement faced fierce oppo-sition from bankers and owners, who threatened the unions by form-ing associations of their own. In addition, workers’ efforts to organize were at first hampered by court decisions declaring strikes illegal.