By 1841 Dorothea Dix had been a schoolteacher in Massachusetts for many years.  That year, a clergyman asked her to lead a Sunday school class at a local prison.  What Dix saw there appalled her.  Mentally ill persons lay neglected in dirty, unheated rooms.  Putting aside her teaching career, she began a crusade to improve prison conditions for the mentally ill and to provide them with the treatment they needed.

In 1843 Dix composed a letter to the Massachusetts legislature calling for such reforms.  She pointed to the example of one local woman as evidence that more humane treatment might help many of the mentally ill.  “Some may say these things cannot be remedied,” she wrote.  “I know they can. ...  A young woman, a pauper ... was for years a raging maniac.

A cage, chains, and the whip were the agents for controlling her, united with harsh tones and profane language.” Dix explained that a local couple took the woman in and treated her with care and respect.  “They are careful of her diet.  They keep her very clean.  She calls them ‘father’ and ‘mother.’ Go there now, and you will find her ‘clothed,’ and though not perfectly in her ‘right mind,’ so far restored as to be a safe and comfortable inmate.”

Largely through the efforts of Dorothea Dix, more than a dozen states enacted sweeping prison reforms and created special institutions for the mentally ill.  As influential as she was, Dix was just one of many citizens who worked to reform various aspects of American society in the mid 1800s.

The reform movements of the mid-1800s stemmed in large part from the revival of religious fervor.  Revivalists preached the power of individuals to improve themselves and the world.

Lyman Beecher, a prominent minister, insisted that it was the nation’s citizenry more than its government that should take charge of building a better society.  True reform, he said, could take place only through “the voluntary energies of the nation itself.  ”

Under the guidance of Beecher and other religious leaders, associations known as benevolent societies sprang up in cities and towns across the country.  At first, they focused on spreading the word of God and attempting to convert nonbelievers.  Soon, however, they sought to combat a number of social problems.

One striking feature of the reform effort was the overwhelming presence of women.  Young women in particular had joined the revivalist movement in much larger numbers than men.  One reason was that many unmarried women with uncertain futures discovered in religion a foundation on which to build their lives.  As more women turned to the church, many also joined religious-based reform groups.  These reform groups targeted aspects of American society they considered in dire need of change.  Among these issues were excessive drinking, prisons, and education.

The Temperance Movement

A number of reformers argued that no social vice caused more crime, disorder, and poverty than the excessive use of alcohol.  Men who drank excessively, they argued, spent their money on liquor rather than food and other family necessities, and they sometimes abused their wives and children.  While some may have disagreed with this assessment, no one could dispute the fact that alcoholism was widespread during the early 1800s.  In small towns throughout the West, citizens drank to ease the isolation and loneliness of rural life, while in the pubs and saloons in eastern cities, drinking was the main leisure activity for many workers.

Although advocates of temperance, or moderation in the consumption of alcohol, had been active since the late 1700s, the new reformers energized the campaign and greatly increased its influence.  Temperance groups formed across the country, preaching the evils of alcohol and persuading heavy drinkers to give up liquor.  In 1833 several of these groups joined together to form the American Temperance Union.

Temperance societies also pushed for laws to prohibit the sale of liquor.  In 1851 Maine passed the first state prohibition law, an example followed by a dozen other states by 1855.  Other states passed “local option” laws, which allowed towns and villages to prohibit liquor sales within their boundaries.

Prison Reform

The spirit of reform also prompted Americans to consider ways to improve the prison system.  Inmates of all kinds, from violent offenders to debtors and the mentally ill, often were indiscriminately crowded together in jails and prisons, which were literally holes in the ground in some cases.  One jail in Connecticut, for example, was an abandoned mineshaft.  Beginning around 1816, many states began building new facilities to provide a better environment for inmates.

Underlying the prison reform movement was a belief in rehabilitating prisoners rather than merely locking them up.  Officials designed forms of rigid discipline to rid criminals of the “laxness” that had led them astray.  Solitary confinement and the imposition of silence on work crews were meant to give prisoners the chance to meditate and think about their wrongdoing.  Even the name of these new prisons, penitentiaries, highlighted the notion that they were places where individuals would work to achieve penitence, or remorse.

Educational Reform

In the early 1800s, many reformers began to push for a system of public education—government-funded schools open to all citizens.  The increase in the number of voters in the 1820s and 1830s and the arrival of millions of new immigrants convinced many people of the need for public education.  Most American leaders and social reformers believed that a democratic republic could only survive if the electorate was well educated and informed.

One of the leaders of the public education movement was Massachusetts legislator Horace Mann.  As president of the Massachusetts Senate, Mann pressed for more public education and backed a bill in 1837 creating a state board of education in Massachusetts.  He then stepped down from his elective office to serve as secretary of the new board.  During his 12 years in that post he doubled teachers’ salaries, opened 50 new high schools, and established schools for teacher training called “normal schools.” Massachusetts quickly became the model for all other northern states.  Mann’s driving conviction was that a nation without an educated populace would have to struggle just to survive, much less prosper:

By the 1850s, tax-supported elementary schools had gained widespread support in the northeastern states and had begun to spread to the rest of the country.  Rural areas responded more slowly because children were needed to help with planting and harvesting.

In the South, a reformer named Calvin Wiley played a similar role in North Carolina to that of Horace Mann in Massachusetts.  In 1839 North Carolina began providing support to local communities that established taxpayer-funded schools.  Wiley traveled throughout the state, building support for public education.  By 1860, about two-thirds of North Carolina’s white children attended school part of the year.  The South as a whole responded less quickly, and only about one-third of southern white children were enrolled in public schools by 1860.  African American children were excluded almost entirely.

Women’s Education

When officials talked about educating voters, they had men in mind—women were still not allowed to cast a ballot in the 1800s.  Nonetheless, a number of women took advantage of the reform movement to create more educational opportunities for girls and women.

Emma Willard, who founded a girls’ boarding school in Vermont in 1814, was an early educational pioneer.  Her school covered the usual subjects for young women, such as cooking and etiquette, but it also included academic subjects like history, math, and literature, which were rarely taught to women.  In 1837 another educator, Mary Lyon, opened the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in South Hadley, Massachusetts, the first institution of higher education for women only.

Also in the 1800s, Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman to earn a medical degree in the United States or Europe.  In 1857 she founded the New York Infirmary for Women and Children, which was staffed entirely by women.

Identify:
What three areas of social reform did reformers target?
 

The Early Women’s Movement

In the early 1800s, the Industrial Revolution began to change the economic roles of men and women.  In the 1700s, most economic activity took place in or near the home because most Americans lived and worked in a rural farm setting.  Although husbands and wives had distinct chores, maintaining the farm was the focus of their efforts.  By the mid-1800s, these circumstances had started to change, especially in the northeastern states.  The development of factories and other work centers separated the home from the workplace.  Men now often left home to go to work, while women tended the house and children.  In time, this development led to the emergence of the first women’s movement.

“True Womanhood”

As the nature of work changed, many Americans began to divide life into two spheres of activity—the home and the workplace.  Many believed the home to be the proper sphere for women, partly because the outside world was seen as corrupt and dangerous, and partly because of popular ideas about the family.

The Christian revivalism of the 1820s and 1830s greatly influenced the American family.  For many parents, raising children was treated as a solemn responsibility because it prepared young people for a disciplined Christian life.  Women often were viewed as more moral and charitable than men, and they were expected to be models of piety and virtue to their children and husbands.

The idea that women should be homemakers and should take responsibility for developing their children’s characters evolved into a set of ideas known as “true womanhood.” Magazine articles and novels aimed at women reinforced the value of their role at home.  In 1841 Catherine Beecher, a daughter of minister and reformer Lyman Beecher, wrote a book called A Treatise on Domestic Economy.  The popular volume argued that women could find fulfillment at home and gave instruction on childcare, cooking, and health matters.

Women Seek Greater Rights

Many women did not feel the ideas of true womanhood were limiting.  Instead, the new ideas implied that wives were now partners with their husbands and in some ways were morally superior to them.  Women were held up as the conscience of the home and society.

The idea that women had an important role to play in building a virtuous home was soon extended to making society more virtuous.  As women became involved in the great moral crusades of the era, some began to argue that they needed greater political rights to promote their ideas.

An advocate of this idea was Margaret Fuller.  Fuller argued that every woman had her own relationship with God and needed “as a soul to live freely and unimpeded.” She declared, “We would have every arbitrary barrier thrown down and every path laid open to women as freely as to men.” Fuller believed that if men and women, whom she called the “two sides” of human nature, were treated equally, it would end injustice in society.

In 1848 Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, two women active in the antislavery movement, organized the Seneca Falls Convention.  This gathering of women reformers marked the beginning of an organized women’s movement.  The convention issued a “Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions” that began with words expanding the Declaration of Independence:  “We hold these truths to be self-evident:  that all men and women are created equal.  .  .  .” Stanton shocked many of the women present by proposing that they focus on gaining the right to vote.  Nevertheless, the Seneca Falls Convention is considered by many to be the unofficial beginning of the struggle for women’s voting rights.

Throughout the 1850s, women continued to organize conventions to gain greater rights for themselves.  The conventions did meet with some success.  By 1860, for example, reformers had convinced 15 states to pass laws permitting married women to retain their property if their husbands died.  Above all, these conventions drew attention to their cause and paved the way for a stronger movement to emerge after the Civil War.

Examine:
What events of the mid-1800s sparked the first women’s movement?
 

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