AP American History: Social Reform

SOCIAL REFORM MOVEMENTS
PAGES 351-361

MORAL REFORM, ASYLUMS & PRISONS
 Social evil --- alcohol; prostitution ( common in port cities)
 Evangelical reformers approach o Rescue prostitutes o Offered salvation of religion, prayer & temporary shelter
 Poor rate of success
 Offered women domestic work which was low paying/restrictive
 Campaigns against prostitution organized by women o Continued throughout the 19th century
 Earliest, most effective anti-prostitution movement o Female Moral Reform Society o Founded by Lydia Finney, 1834, in NY o Prostitution ---- moral/economic issue o Organized charity o Worked for poor women & orphans o Direct action against patrons of prostitutes
 Printed names of patrons in the local newspaper o Lobbied the NY state legislature for criminal penalties against male clients/prostitutes
 Asylum reform o Spearheaded by Dorothea Dix, 1834 o Graphically described how insane women were treated
 Incarcerated w/ ordinary criminals
 Locked up in cages, closets, stalls & pens
 Chained, beaten & naked o Led to the establishment of state asylums in Massachusetts as well as similar institution in other states
 Other reforms active in other areas of reform o Prison reform
 Model penitentiaries built in Auburn, Ossining, NY, Philadelphia & Pittsburg
• Strict order & discipline ( silence/isolation only causing despair)
• Based on reform rather than incarceration o Orphanages o Homes of refuge o hospitals
UTOPIANISM & MORMONISM
 1830s characterized by political activism & reform fever
 Only a few chose to escape into utopian communities & new religions
 Upstate NY along Erie Canal site of reform movements & evangelical revivals o This areas known as the “Burned-Over District”
 Apocalyptic religions sprang up in areas where rapid social changes were taking place as well as hard times
 Panic of 1837, & the depression that followed led some to believe in an imminent catastrophe o Millerites