Objectives
A thorough study of Chapter Twelve should enable the student to understand:
1. The two basic impulses that were reflected in the reform movements, and examples of groups illustrating each impulse.
2. The contributions of a new group of literary figures (such as James Fenimore Cooper, Walt Whitman, and Edgar Allan Poe) to American cultural nationalism.
3. The transcendentalists and their place in American society.
4. The sources of American religious reform movements, why they originated where they did, their ultimate objectives, and what their leadership had in common.
5. The two distinct sources from which the philosophy of reform arose.
6. American educational reform in the antebellum period, and the contribution of education to the growth of nationalism.
7. The role of women in American society, and the attempts to alter their relationships with men.
8. The origins of the antislavery movement, and the sources of its leadership.
9. The role of abolitionism in the antislavery movement, and the strengths and weaknesses of that part of the movement.
Glossary
1. romanticism: The intellectual movement that replaced the Age of Reason (rationalism). Stressing imagination, emotion, and sentiment, the movement emphasized individual thought and action as well as human goodness and equality.
2. socialism: A social, economic, and political theory based on collective ownership of the means of production and distribution, whereby the means of production and distribution are managed by the government for the people.
3. temperance: The use of moderation in one's indulgences. In the context of the reform movement, the abstinence from alcoholic drinks and ultimately the prohibition of these beverages.