Skip to content

Choose a Chapter | Purchase the eBook

1 The Collision Of Cultures
2 Britain And Its Colonies
3 Colonial Ways Of Life
4 The Imperial Perspective
5 From Empire To Independence
6 The American Revolution
7 Shaping A Federal Union
8 The Federalist Era
9 The Early Republic
10 Nationalism And Sectionalism
11 The Jacksonian Impulse
12 The Dynamics Of Growth
13 An American Renaissance: Religion, Romanticism, And Reform
14 Manifest Destiny
15 The Old South
16 The Crisis Of Union
17 The War Of The Union
18 Reconstruction: North And South
19 New Frontiers: South And West
20 Big Business And Organized Labor
21 The Emergence Of Urban America
22 Gilded-age Politics And Agrarian Revolt
23 An American Empire
24 The Progressive Era
25 America And The Great War
26 The Modern Temper
27 Republican Resurgence And Decline
28 New Deal America
29 From Isolation To Global War
30 The Second World War
31 The Fair Deal And Containment
32 Through The Picture Window: Society And Culture, 1945–1960
33 Conflict And Deadlock: The Eisenhower Years
34 New Frontiers: Politics And Social Change In The 1960s
35 Rebellion And Reaction In The 1960s And 1970s
36 A Conservative Insurgency
37 Triumph And Tragedy: America At The Turn Of The Century

Chapter 13: An American Renaissance: Religion, Romanticism, And Reform

Chapter Outline

  1. Reason and religion
    1. Deism
      1. Optimistic religious outlook
      2. Concept of God’s role
      3. Impact on Protestantism
    2. Unitarianism
    3. Universalism
  2. The Second Great Awakening
    1. Frontier phase
      1. Advent of the camp meeting
      2. Audience to which the movement appealed
      3. The Baptists
        1. Emphasis and appeals of the Baptists
        2. Nature of Baptist organization
      4. The Methodists
        1. More centralized organization
        2. Role of the circuit riders
      5. Nature of the camp meetings
    2. The “Burned-Over District”
      1. Role of Charles G. Finney
      2. Finney’s message
  3. The Mormons
    1. The origins of the sect
    2. Nature of organization and beliefs
    3. Brigham Young and the move to Utah
    4. Fate of the State of Deseret
  4. Romanticism in America
    1. The emphasis of the romantic movement
    2. Transcendentalism
      1. Origins of the movement and nature of beliefs
      2. Development of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s interest in Transcendentalism
      3. Henry David Thoreau
        1. Thoreau’s interests and ideas
        2. Thoreau’s life at Walden Pond
        3. Basis and message of his essay “Civil Disobedience”
      4. The impact of the movement
  5. The flowering of American literature
    1. New England Renaissance
    2. New York writers: Irving and Cooper
    3. 1850–1855
      1. The Scarlet Letter
      2. Moby-Dick
      3. Leaves of Grass
    4. The controversial role of Walt Whitman
    5. The popular press
      1. Technological advances
      2. Cheap newspapers, magazines, and books
  6. Education
    1. Level of literacy
    2. Growth of the public schools
      1. Need for a literate electorate
      2. Horace Mann’s contributions
      3. Education in the South
      4. Private academies
    3. Higher education
    4. Education for women
      1. Level of schools
      2. Divergence from men’s education
  7. Reform movements
    1. Roots of reform
    2. Varieties of reform
    3. Temperance
      1. Rate of alcohol consumption
      2. Arguments for temperance
      3. Organizations for temperance
      4. Debates over goals and methods
    4. Prison reform
      1. Optimism breeds new approaches to punishment
      2. Changing views of prisons
      3. Nature of the Auburn Penitentiary
    5. Treatment of the insane
      1. Early treatment of the insane
      2. Role of Dorothea Dix
    6. Women’s rights
      1. Catharine Beecher and the “cult of domesticity”
      2. Status of women in the antebellum period
      3. Significance of the Seneca Falls Convention
      4. Successes of the women’s movement
      5. Jobs for educated women
    7. Utopian communities
      1. Bases for their popularity
      2. Concepts of the Shakers
      3. The Oneida Community
        1. Background of John Humphrey Noyes
        2. Concept of complex marriage
        3. Activities and contributions of the community
        4. Causes for decline and transformation
      4. New Harmony
        1. Background of Robert Owen
        2. Principles for his cooperative
        3. Causes of decline
      5. Brook Farm
        1. Significant supporters
        2. Reasons for success
        3. Dissolution
      6. Evaluation of the utopian communities
    8. Reformers’ concern about slavery

Section Menu

Organize

Learn

Connect

Multimedia

Norton Gradebook

Instructors now have an easy way to collect students’ online quizzes with the Norton Gradebook without flooding their inboxes with e-mails.

Students can track their online quiz scores by setting up their own Student Gradebook.