An Eruption of Reform:

There is no agreement as to why a rage for reform erupted in the early 19th century. Some attribute it to the outburst of Protestant Evangelicalism. Others think it was a delayed reaction to the perfectionist teachings of the Enlightenment. Yet another possibility is the worldwide revolution in communications that was a feature of 19th-century capitalism.

"Reform reflected the sensitivity of a small number of persons to imperfections in American life. In a sense, the reformers were "voices of conscience," reminding their materialistic fellow citizens that the American Dream was not yet a reality, pointing to the gulf between the ideal and the actuality." (Britannica)

Changing Roles of Women

Women made many social advances during this age. We see a very extreme case of women’s social and spiritual roles changing in Kingdom of Matthias. "In the process, they provided poor people, the men of their own class, and (just as important) each other with demonstrations of the dignity, competence, and spiritual courage of an emerging evangelical womanhood." (23) Women worked actively in their communities to spread Christianity, morality, and temperance. They would "visit the poor and pray with them in their homes." (22) Women were among the strongest supporters of the temperance movement. In fact, men were weary of giving women the right to vote for many years for fear that they would outlaw alcohol.

One important characteristic of this age is the dissolving of Calvinist principals into the more forgiving, equality-concerned ideals of Evangelicalism. "Moderate evangelicals like Matthew Perrine and Gardiner Spring—men loosened from the presumptions of both nobles oblige and Calvinist determinism—hoped that such conversions would build ties of benevolence across the God given boundaries of rich and poor, male and female." (24) The Age of reform was bringing people together to live in a more tolerant society. Yet we see in the case of Matthias, men were not all so willing to give up their positions as leaders. In fact, "Reverend Matthew LaRue Perrine reminded them that God still governed the world through fixed relationships of dominance and subordination." (23)

Much of the credit for this reform movement is given to Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Coffin Mott (a Quaker who had helped organize the American Anti-slavery Society in the 1830s). In July 1848 they organized the first women's rights convention in the United States, known as the Seneca Falls Convention. Between 100 and 300 people attended, including Frederick Douglass, the noted abolitionist and former slave.

Abolitionism

"For all the movement's zeal and propagandistic successes, it was bitterly resented by many Northerners, and the masses of free whites were indifferent to its message. In the 1830s, urban mobs, typically led by gentlemen of property and standing," stormed abolitionist meetings, wreaking property and persons of blacks and their white sympathizers, evidently indifferent to the niceties distinguishing one abolitionist theorist from another." (Britannica)

We might expect that the Age of Reform with all of its stress on equality would have done more to further the abolitionist movement. However, even within the new evangelical religions, slavery was a touch issue. "Slavery became the most divisive issue in the history of Methodism. Radical abolitionist Methodists broke away from the Methodist Episcopal Church in the 1840s to form the Wesleyan Methodist Church, which in the 20th century merged with the Pilgrim Holiness Church to become the Wesleyan Church." (Britannica)

Primary black leaders of the abolitionist movement like Frederick Douglass joined forces with the women’s movement of this time to further their efforts towards Social reform.

Prison Reform

Prison used to be a place where you were locked up and forgotten about. "By the mid-19th century, however, penologists began to argue that prisoners could and should be rehabilitated while incarcerated." (Britannica) This brought about two schools of thought about just how this rehabilitation should occur. "The first system began in Auburn State Prison in New York in 1817. Prisoners worked together in total silence during the day, but were housed separately at night. Strict discipline was enforced, and violators were subjected to severe reprisals. The second model, the Pennsylvania system, begun in 1829 in the Eastern State Penitentiary at Cherry Hill, was based on solitary confinement for convicts by day and night." (Britannica)

"The Auburn system was criticized as being virtual slavery, because prisoners there were often put to work for private entrepreneurs who had contracted with the state for their labor. Furthermore, prisoners were never paid, thus leaving handsome profits for the business owners and the state. Advocates of the Auburn system, however, alleged that the idleness of the prisoners in the Cherry Hill penitentiary sometimes caused madness. Proponents of the Auburn system stressed the activity of the prisoners and the profits from their labor, which meant the state did not have to finance the prison." (Britannica)

It was certainly a mood of fixing society that pervaded the Age of Reform. From the women who went to the poorest communities to pray for sinful; to those who saw the evil of slavery and stood up and spoke against it; to those who saw that it was a disease of the society to lock up those who have fallen from grace and never give them a chance to redeem themselves. This age was about rediscovering America, finding its faults, abandoning strict Calvinist doctrine and following something kinder and gentler. The Age of Reform worked from various places to fix specific parts of our society and they often worked together.

Microsoft® Encarta® 98 Encyclopedia. © 1993-1997 Microsoft Corporation.

Bibliography:

"Prison" Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1977 ed.

Microsoft® Encarta® 98 Encyclopedia. © 1993-1997 Microsoft Corporation.

Johnson, Paul E., and Sean Wilentz. The Kingdom of Matthias. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.

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