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Second Great Awakening & Transcendentalism

Religious Transformation and the Second Great Awakening

The American Revolution had largely been a secular affair. The Founding Fathers clearly demonstrated their opposition to the intermingling of politics and religion by establishing the separation of church and state in the first amendment to the Constitution.

In part because religion was separated from the control of political leaders, a series of religious REVIVALS swept the United States from the 1790s and into the 1830s that transformed the religious landscape of the country. Known today as the SECOND GREAT AWAKENING, this spiritual resurgence fundamentally altered the character of American religion. At the start of the Revolution the largest denominations were CONGREGATIONALISTS (the 18th-century descendants of Puritan churches), ANGLICANS (known after the Revolution as Episcopalians), and Quakers. But by 1800, EVANGELICAL METHODISM and BAPTISTS, were becoming the fasting-growing religions in the nation.
The Second Great Awakening is best known for its large CAMP MEETINGS that led extraordinary numbers of people to convert through an enthusiastic style of preaching and audience participation. A young man who attended the famous 20,000-person revival at Cane Ridge, Kentucky, in 1802, captures the spirit of these camp meetings activity:
The noise was like the roar of Niagara. The vast sea of human beings seemed to be agitated as if by a storm. I counted seven ministers, all preaching at one time, some on stumps, others on wagons ... Some of the people were singing, others praying, some crying for mercy. A peculiarly strange sensation came over me. My heart beat tumultuously, my knees trembled, my lips quivered, and I felt as though I must fall to the ground.
This young man was so moved that he went on to become a Methodist minister. As this quotation suggests, evangelical ministers reached their audience at an emotional level that powerfully moved large crowds.

The immense success of the Second Great Awakening was also furthered by evangelical churches innovative organizational techniques. These were well suited to the frontier conditions of newly settled territories. Most evangelical churches relied on itinerant preachers to reach large areas without an established minister and also included important places for lay people who took on major religious and administrative roles within evangelical congregations.The EVANGELICAL impulse at the heart of the Second Great Awakening shared some of the egalitarian thrust of Revolutionary ideals. Evangelical churches generally had a populist orientation that favored ordinary people over elites. For instance, individual piety was seen as more important for salvation than the formal university training required for ministers in traditional Christian churches.

The Second Great Awakening marked a fundamental transition in American religious life. Many early American religious groups in the CALVINIST tradition had emphasized the deep depravity of human beings and believed they could only be saved through the grace of God. The new evangelical movement, however, placed greater emphasis on humans' ability to change their situation for the better. By stressing that individuals could assert their "FREE WILL" in choosing to be saved and by suggesting that salvation was open to all human beings, the Second Great Awakening embraced a more optimistic view of the human condition. The repeated and varied revivals of these several decades helped make the United States a much more deeply PROTESTANT nation than it had been before.
Finally, the Second Great Awakening also included greater public roles for white women and much higher African-American participation in Christianity than ever before.


New England Transcendentalism was a religious, philosophical, and literary movement that began to express itself in New England in the 1830s and continued through the 1840s and 1850s. Although Ralph Waldo Emerson, Amos Bronson Alcott, and others among the Transcendentalists lived to old age in the 1880s and beyond, by about 1860 the energy that had earlier characterized Transcendentalism as a distinct movement had subsided. For several reasons, Transcendentalism is not simple to define. Transcendentalism encompassed complex philosophical and religious ideas. Its tenets were tinged with a certain mysticism, which defies concise explanation. Moreover, significant differences of focus and interpretation existed among the Transcendentalists; these differences complicate generalizations about the movement as a whole.
Henry David Thoreau himself pointed out the difficulty of understanding Transcendentalism in his well-known journal entry for March 5, 1853:
The secretary of the Association for the Advancement of Science requests me . . . to fill the blank against certain questions, among which the most important one was what branch of science I was specially interested in . . . I felt that it would be to make myself the laughing-stock of the scientific community to describe to them that branch of science which specially interests me, inasmuch as they do not believe in a science which deals with the higher law. So I was obliged to speak to their condition and describe to them that poor part of me which alone they can understand. The fact is I am a mystic, a transcendentalist, and a natural philosopher to boot. Now that I think of it, I should have told them at once that I was a transcendentalist. That would have been the shortest way of telling them that they would not understand my explanations.
Transcendentalism clearly eluded succinct definition in Thoreau's time as much as it does in our own.
Moreover, the Transcendentalists were only loosely connected with one another. They were not a cohesive, organized group who shared a formal doctrine. They were distinct and independent individuals who accepted some basic premises about man's place in the universe.
Transcendentalism flourished in the intellectual centers of Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts, and, because of Ralph Waldo Emerson's presence, in nearby Concord as well. Emerson moved to Concord in 1834 and bought a home on the Cambridge Turnpike in 1835. His essay Nature, a systematic exposition of the main principles of Transcendentalism, was published anonymously in 1836. Its publication sparked a period of intense intellectual ferment and literary activity.
Although it was based in part on ancient ideas (the philosophy of Plato, for example), Transcendentalism was in many ways a radical movement, threatening to established religion. Some people opposed Transcendentalism vigorously. One of its most reactionary critics was Harvard professor Andrews Norton, who attacked Emerson's "Divinity School Address" in 1838 and who went on to produce a piece titledDiscourse on the Latest Form of Infidelity in 1839. (The "latest form of infidelity" to which Norton referred was, of course, Transcendentalism.)
http://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/t/thoreau-emerson-and-transcendentalism/what-is-transcendentalism/introduction

American Transcendentalism
http://public.wsu.edu/~campbelld/amlit/amtrans.htm

Comments

  1. 1)Where was the burned-over district?
    2)what disease was there a vaccine for now?
    3)Who created the Mormons?
    4)Why did Jackson want to remove the slaves?
    5)Why were the native americans called the "five civilized tribes"?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 1)Western and Central regions of NY.
      2)smallpox
      3)Joseph Smith
      4)
      5)They were Native Americans who lived during the removal period, known as Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole.

      Delete
  2. 1) How did they remake the society?
    2)What was the biggest problem facing american medicine?
    3)who was Frederick Douglas and what did he do?
    4)What was San jacinto?
    5)what were the five civilized tribes?

    ReplyDelete
  3. 1) What did the second great awakening consist of?
    2) How did the white attitudes change towards the tribes?
    3) Who made up the "Five Civilized Tribes"?
    4) What were the differences between moderate abolitionist and extremist abolitionists?
    5) What was the name of the Mexican War treaty and what compromises were made?

    ReplyDelete
  4. 1) What year did the Second Great Awakening start?
    2) Define Transcendentalism.
    3) What year did Transcendentalism mainly begin?
    4) How did the Second Great Awakening affect women?
    5) What were the Camp Meetings during the Second Great Awakening?

    ReplyDelete
  5. 1)What was a controversial belief of the Mormons community?
    2)What was the burned-over district?
    3)Who were the "five civilized tribes"?
    4)What was Republican Motherhood?
    5)What were "utopian" communities?

    ReplyDelete
  6. 1)What was the second Great Awakening?
    2)What were the Five Civilized tribes?
    3)What was the Trails of Tears?
    4)How did the Mexican War start?
    5)what was the point of the Temperance Movement?

    ReplyDelete
  7. 1.)What is Transcendentalism?
    2.)What happened during Camp Meetings?
    3.)What was the Second Great Awakening mainly about?
    4.)When did the Second Great Awakening start?
    5.)Joseph was the leader of which religious group?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 1) Transcendentalism was a philosophical and social movement that explain the reaction of rationalism.
      2) During the Camp meetings there was preaching about the "revival meeting.
      3) The second Great awakening was mostly about religious revival movement.
      4) The Second Great Awakening started in the early 19 Century, 1800-1820.
      5)Joseph was the Leader of the Mormons.

      Delete
  8. 1) Who was Horace Mann and what importance did he have on society today?
    2) what happened in the Orgen country and what were the results of the treaty established ?
    3) During the Second Great Awakening, reforms were going on, what are come acts of revivalism?
    4) Explain Women's Cult of Domesticity?
    5) what is transcendentalism and how is Henry David Thoreau connected to this practice?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 1. He was an educational reformer and he promoted universal public education.

      2.there was a dispute on the land.The Oregon Treaty settled the dispute between the United States and Great Britain over the area in Oregon located between the Columbia River and the 49th parallel.

      3.Membership rose rapidly among Baptist and Methodist congregations
      Burned-over district

      4. A set of beliefs about gender roles in 19th century America. they believed that since men were busy working, women should focus on cultivating a home.

      5.Is the belive that our knowledge of reality comes from an analysis of our own thought processes.It was also movement for religious renewal, literary innovation, and social transformation.

      Delete
  9. 1)What happened during the trails of tears?
    2)What were the five civilized tribes?
    3)What were utopian commuities about?
    4)Explain the second great awakening, what happned? and why it happened ?
    5)Why was the temperance movement significant?

    ReplyDelete
  10. 1. What was the Second Great Awakening?
    2. Who was Horace Mann, and what did he do?
    3. What were the 5 civilized tribes?
    4. What led to the "Trail of Tears", and what did it say about Jackson as a president?
    5. Why did Jackson want to remove the Native tribes?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 1. The Second Great Awakening revived the side of religion.It created activist groups like temperance,abolition,women's rights, prisons, common school movement...
      2. Horace Mann was an educational reformer and the first secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education.He reorganized the Massachusetts school system,he established the first American state-supported teachers' college.
      3. The 5 civilized tribes were the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Creek, Choctaw, Seminole.
      4.The Indian Removal Policy led to the Trail of Tears, this showed that Jackson was sort of a bad president because a lot of people died during he journey and didn't care about 5 civilized tribes.
      5.Jackson wanted to removed the Native tribes so the white settlement could expand.

      Delete
  11. 1) In Brook Farm individuals gather what type of form?
    2) What was the Second Great Awkening about?
    3) Why is Horace Mann so important?
    4) Explain concept of "burned-over-district"
    5) Who was Charles Grandison Finney?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 1) Please rephrase your question because I am confused about what you are asking.
      2) The Second Great Awakening was a period of time when the idea of predestination disappeared and the idea of free will was developed.
      3) Horace Mann is so important because he was responsible for the the rapid growth of public education for all children in the US.
      4) The "Burned-over-district" refers to the place where the Second Great Awakening took place, New York.
      5) Charles Grandison Finney was an American Congregationalist/Presbyterian minister and leader in the Second Great Awakening in the United States.

      Delete
  12. 1) What was the Second Great Awakening?
    2) What is Transcendentalism? What is it's beliefs?
    3) Who is Henry Thoreau and Emerson? What were their differences?
    4) Why did the Women Suffragers and against-Slavery supporters work together?
    5) When and where did Great Awakening begin?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 1) The Second Great Awakening was a Religious Revival in the early 19th century in the United States.
      2) Transcendentalism was a protest against the general state of intellectualism and spirituality. They believes in the power of the individual
      3) Both, Ralph Emerson and Henry David Thoreau were two important American writers and leaders of the Transcenddntalist movement. However, Emerson believed that individualism should be found trough nature. Thoreau believed that to be happy with who you are, you have to truly live.
      4) Both worked together because they were fighting for rights.
      5) It began in the early 19th century in the United States.

      Delete
  13. 1) What was the Second Great Awakening ?
    2) What was "Burned Over District"?
    3) Who was Lyond Garrison?
    4) What was one similar belief that the Oneida Community and the Mormons had?
    5) Who was Ralph Waldo Emerson?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 1)The Second Great Awakening was a religious revival that focused more on individuality for one's salvation.
      2) The Burned Over District was New York, where the Second Great Awakening took place.
      3) Lloyd Garrison was an American abolitionist that tried to help break the pro-slavery mindset, along with many others.
      4) The Oneida was different from the Mormons because they had different beliefs not only spiritually, but lawfully. The Oneida community believed in free love and they practiced Communalism, the Mormons had their own Holy Scriptures they were nomadic and roaming a lot.
      5) Ralph Waldo Emerson was a leader of the Transcendentalist movement and wrote many books referring to the movement and it's beliefs.

      Delete
  14. 1) What was the "Trail of Tears"?
    2) How can Transcedentalism be defined?
    3) What was "Republican Motherhood"?
    4) How Henry David Thoreau was linked to transcendentalism? Predict how things would've been if he wouldn't appear?
    5) What was Jackson's primary goal when executing the "Trail of Tears"? Do you think his actions were justified?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 1. The trials of tears was when they forced the Indian American to move to the West. They had to took a long way, thousands of them died in their journal.

      2. Ralph Waldo Emerson founded it, movement that developed in the late 1820s and 1830s in the eastern region of the United States. The movement was a reaction to, or protest against the general state of intellectualism and spirituality.

      3. The republican motherhood was a 20th-century term for an attitude toward women's roles present in the emerging United States before, during, and after the American Revolution (c. 1654 to 1920).

      4.He was one of the founder, if he wasn't there the transcendentalism.

      5. Jackson's primary goal when executing the "Trail of Tears" was remove the Indian Americans from their land and give it to the White Americans so they can improve their farms. I don't think his action were justify because he believe all man were create equal but when it came to the Indians American he didn't apply it.

      Delete
  15. 1.What was the result of the Mexican War?
    2.Who are the Mormos? Who founded it?
    3.What was remaking society?
    4.What happen during the women and the "cult of domesticity"?
    5.What was the purpose of the second great awakening? Do they succeed?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 1)The result of the Mexican war was the forced Mexican Cession of the territories of Alta California and Santa Fe de Nuevo México to the United States in exchange for $15 million.
      2) The Mormons are a religious and cultural group also called " The church of Jesus Christ latter-day saints". It was first initiated by Joseph Smith in upstate New York in the 1820's.
      3)Remaking society was the action taken to fix/ change from the past society America had.
      4)"The cult of domesticity" is a view about women in the 1800's. It was the belief that women should stay at home and shouldn't been participating in outside events. They believed that women should be more religious than man.
      5) The purpose of the "second great awakening " was a second chance to focus more on individual salvation. This awakening was a success.

      Delete
  16. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  17. 1- What was the "Trail of Tears"?
    2- What is remake society?
    3- What was the effect of the Mexican in the United States?
    4- What is the difference between Shakers and the Oneida Community?
    5- What was the relationship between the supporters of abolition and supporters of the women's right?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 1) The Trail of Tears was the name the Cherokee gave to their relocation journey which was east of the Mississippi river because of the number of Natives who died during the traversy.
      2) Were a set of organizations that worked on a wide number of goals like: temperance; education; peace; the care of the poor, the handicapped, and the mentally ill; the treatment of criminals; he rights of women; many more.In order to allow people to control a ever changing world.
      3) It lead to a upset in the accountancy of land as the land could have been owned either by the Mexicans or the Americans and this disagreemu would eventually lead to the Mexican War.
      4) The difference(s) between shakeres and the Oneida Community was that the shakers were known because of their unique religious rival in which the members of the congregation could "shake" sinboff. While the Oneida Community on the other hand were "perfectionist" and rejected traditional family and marriage roles.
      5) The relationship between those who supported the abolishment of slavery and those who supported women's rights was the association with other reform movements such as each other.

      Delete
  18. 1. What was the Second Great Awakening?
    2. What was the trail of tears?
    3. When was the Mexican-American War?
    4. Who were the Mormon?
    5. What was the Transcendentalism?

    ReplyDelete
  19. William Lloyd Garrison was known for what?

    List and describe 2 utopian communities?

    What was the Second Great Awakening?

    What caused the Mexican- American War?

    When and what was the temperance movement?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 1) William Lloyd Garrison was an abolitionist, he is known as the Liberator who started a Anti-slavery movement.

      2) Indiana and Oneida were both utopian societies.Both of these communities believed in socio-religious perfectionism and communal communication.

      3) The second Great Awakening was a time period for revivalism whether it's religious wise, social, or economical.

      4) There are many conspiracy for what caused the American Mexican War. But the real reason for the American and Mexican War was it's conflict over who Texas belongs to and plus the US claimed that Mexican can't govern itself.

      5) The Temperance movement western farmers began making extra grain into whiskey and caused conflict between churches, this took place in the early 19th century.

      Delete
  20. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  21. 1. What was the main message of the Second Great Awakening?
    2. Who was William Lloyd Garrison? What did he do?
    3. What makes Fredrick Douglas a significant topic when it comes to African American abolitionist? What did he do that you won't forget?
    4. How was tension between the United States and Mexico sparked? What did the tension lead to?
    5. How did the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo come to be? What role did Nicholas Trist play in it?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 1. The main message was clear that individuals must readmit God and Christ into their daily lives, must embrace a fervent, active piety, and must reject the skeptical rationalism that threatened traditional beliefs.
      2. Williams Lloyd Garrison was a assistant in the 1820's to the New Jersey Quaker Lundy. Lundy wrote newspapers that were antislavery, but William soon became tired of working for him, so he went back to Boston and where he found his own weekly newspaper, the Liberator. And in his newspaper he said that opponents of slavery should view be institution from the point of view of the black man, not white slaveowners. Also he said people should not talk about the evil influence of slavery on the white society.
      3. What makes Fredrick Douglas so significant is the fact that he escaped slavery and was lionized by the people in England when he protested for antislavery because they were also having a antislavery movement. Then he came back to the United States in 1847 and purchased his freedom from his Maryland slaveowner. And finally he founded his own newspaper, the North Star where he demanded for African Americans not only freedom, but full social and economic equality.
      4. The tension between the United States and Mexico was sparked when the Texans claimed Rio Grande to be the border and when Mexico opposed it saying the Nueces River was the border. After that Polk seem to support the Texans so sends a small army to Texas to protect against small invasions. Finally the United States began to want California and New Mexico and that originally led to why is called the Mexican War.
      5. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo came to be when Polk sent a special presidential envoy named Nicholas Trist to negotiate a settlement. And on February 2nd, 1948 he reached a agreement with the new Mexican government on the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, by which Mexico agreed to cede California and New Mexico to the U.S. and acknowledge the Rio Grande as the boundary of Texas.

      Delete
  22. 1) It was the increase in declining church attendance and a reform that limitd alcohol.
    2) William Garrison was the publisher of the anti-slavery newspaper The Liberator and founder of the American Anti-Slavery Society, was one of the most fiery and outspoken abolitionists of the Civil War period.
    3)He was an abolitionist,He also showed the importance of education and how a willingness to learn can lead you to better places in life.
    4)They each claimed two different boarders. The United States sent citizens down to texas because texas wanted to become part of the united states and Mexico saw that as a threat so they shut them down, so then the United States said U.S citizens were killed on U.S land so they had to go to war.
    5)The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo brought an end the the Mexican- American war. Nicholas Trist in the Mexican War, his belief was that justice could be served only by Mexico's full surrender, including surrender of territory. Ignoring the president's recall command with the full knowledge that his defiance would cost him his career, Trist chose to adhere to his own principles and negotiate a treaty in violation of his instructions. His stand made him briefly a very controversial figure in the United States.

    ReplyDelete
  23. 1. Who was Charles Finney?
    2. What was transcendentilism?
    3. What was the Mexican War?
    4. Why did Americans go to war with the Mexicans?
    5. Why did women believe that they should have rights?

    ReplyDelete
  24. 1. Charles Finney was a preacher who led the second great awakening.
    2. Transcendentilism was philosophical movement in protest against the state of intellectualism and spiritualism
    3. The Mexican War was a war between Mexico and the United States from 1846-1847
    4. The Americans event to war with Mexico because they wanted to annex most of their land o add to their territory
    5. Women. Relieved that they should ha e rights because they believe in the declaration that all men are created equal is including women

    ReplyDelete
  25. 1) What was the Mexican war?
    2) Who was Charles Finney?
    3) What was remaking society?
    4) Why did the Americans and the Mexicans go to war?
    5) When and where did the second great awakening begin?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 1) The Mexican war was a dispute for land between the Mexicans and American from 1846-1847
      2)Charles Finney was a preacher who led the great awakening.
      3) that was an organization that led movements that allowed people to take control of the changing world
      4) the Mexicans and the Americans went to war because they where fighting for the land of Texas and California, America wanted to expand its territory and Mexico wanted to keep it.
      5) The second great awakening occurred in the United States the movement started in 1790 but began to grow in the 1800s




      3)

      Delete

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