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  • First great awakening
    • caused massive uproar on religion >
    • people fanatic about religion
    • Believe they are right;
    • This will bring conflict
  • Anti Semitism
    • Tax on jews
  • Spanish Inquisition
    • To gain more control on spain
    • Execute any muslim; expand to any non-christian
    • British colonies across ocean was only way out
  • 1740 - 177os
    • Religion tearing colonies apart; along w/ differences
    • Founding fathers create nation
    • Talk about no official religion
  • Calvin believed in predestined destination; predestinate
  • Luther > freedom of choice
  • Second Great Awakening 1820s - 1840s
    • Luring optimist building on hope
    • Encourage free thinking
    • Cowboys against religion; Blaming of Catholics
  • Men = public figures; Women = private figures
  • Charles Finney
    • Perfectionism; individual level will affect macro level
  • Women need arranged marriages b/c no way they could survive society without a man
  • Education reformed
    • Needed education for school, access regardless of income

Transcription

it will lead to Americans are desperate for consumer goods and in the early. Of the 1800s we are having some conflicts Religion a lot of people started saying you know these people are clearly out of control it's about time that they get taken out of control of the colonial government up there and there's this pushback against the religion that had been controlling that area and it ends up radiating throughout the colonial culture so essentially there's this listening against religious ideals and that doesn't mean that they abandon him but a lot of people are saying you know let's get away from this extremism and at the same time people are also pushing the Enlightenment thinkers they're talking about all of the people who have been writing about things like natural law the natural rights of people life liberty and property and all of the ideas that ultimately will lead to the revolution but they're being put forth largely in a secular way and what starts to happen is you see a battlefield really emerged between the Enlightenment ideas of the secular meeting the religious ideas and so this secret and profane secular versus religious battle Collision is going on in Europe but it's also going on in the colonies in a different way the colonies have seen a big reduction of the influence of religion and a lot of the religiously minded people are really concerned about what's happening to the people during this. Of time there's also a big upsurge in consumerism which we'll talk about the third section in depth but a lot of people look at the increased materialism The increased secularism the pulling away from religious ideals as being troubling they're seeing the patterns that are radiating through America and they're bothered by it so there is a concern within the religious core that's still there but by and large things kind of stagnate religiously in America until really the 1730s all right excuse me the 17th now I don't normally care whether you know years or not but it's a good idea to understand the context of when this is happening to understand why it's significant in 1739 a man named George Whitfield it's spelled Whitefield it looks like it should be pronounced Whitefield he's a preacher over in England and he comes to the colonies in North America and stages a number of revivals for 2 years he's out here for 2 years and he starts in Georgia works his way up the Atlantic Seaboard All the Way North and then he works his way all the way back down south and then he goes back to England so it was only just a two-year stint that he was here but it had the equivalent of almost dropping a bomb in America it was dramatic. The Revival he launched was one that incorporated more emotion he said why should you exclude emotionality from religion instead you should embrace it because that's essentially God inspiring you so he talks about feeling your religion applying your religion it's not enough to just acknowledge it acknowledgeably give it essentially a mental agreement but to actually embrace it to feel it to live it and essentially he is the strike on a match that a lot of the religious community have been waiting for somebody who is really reaching people in their heart and he becomes really the first true evangelist in the process he also sparked something that will be called the Great Awakening we will refer to it as the first Great Awakening we're going to talk about both the first and the second today. As more and more people got fired up about the religion they also became very fanatical about it and when that happens their way becomes the right way and anybody who doesn't agree with them becomes the enemy even if that disagreement is just a little narrow thing that it's not a big difference between one group and another their way is wrong our way is right and this will turn into some pretty heated conflicts and a lot of religion battling other religious groups you'll start seeing it turn into violence at times where one group will assault others in various ways one thing that became something that was rather famous was one particular denomination really hated another church is approach to things and decided to one day wait until their Sunday service where they brought in a whole bunch of rabid dogs turn them loose in the church and then block the doors to keep the dogs in there hoping that those rabid dogs would bite people and give them rabies so this is not a nice friendly oh let's all embrace the religious ideas and start working together these religious up surgeons of all these various groups radicalize people to the point where they start fighting with each other and it absolutely rips colonial society apart at the scene this kind of Hysteria has been something that Captain arms length and now it's just erupting like crazy all over the place discrimination on religion turns into widespread persecution people start attacking Catholics the Protestant versus Catholic battle starts happening also another thing that starts happening that really hasn't been a big factor in the colonies up to this point anti-Semitism starts to rise that is attacks on Jews that in Europe wh kicked the Moors out of their country and took it back under their controlen Spain and Portugal the Moors were in Islamic empire that had control of Spain and Portugal for a couple centuries anyway when they kicked him out they then got permission from the pope to launch an inquisition to purge out all the last remaining influence of those people in Spain and they will stage what becomes now famous the Spanish Inquinsition. it was an  attack on all of those lingering Moorish ties to control and structure in Spain and they're trying to eradicate it so they persecute anything Muslim well then they pretty much extend that to anything that is not specifically Christian that is Catholic and with it they are incorporating attacks on Jews the Spanish Jews don't really have many options they want to get out of Spain or they could be killed they look at England England doesn't want them they look at France France doesn't want them they look all over the place for places where they can safely go there aren't any except for one. There are those English colonies on the other side of the ocean that if they can get there they probably can fly under the radar for a long time without anybody really realizing who they are what they stand for the fact that they're Jews and so they managed to get over to the American colonies in some limited amounts their ancestors by the time this is rolling around understand that the migration was early on in colonization and they've been there for a while now the Jews have been there for several Generations their families are part of the society over there just as everybody else's and all of a sudden they start being persecuted and this is really the first time you see widespread anti-jewish persecution rising up in the in the colony so anti-semitism creeps up into this. Religious attacks are widespread and the reason why this becomes significant keep in mind the context of when this is happening this is all happening after 1740 what happens in the 1770s anyone nobody yes we didn't pay attention in high school how about in grade school did you pay attention then what happens in 1776? Yeah the Declaration of Independence the American Revolution is going to happen then yeah easy to forget about that right so from since you have religious religious differences tearing American colonial society apart in a whole bunch of different ways you have internal political divisions in all of the colonies and you have different colonies that are actually fighting with each other as well all of these divisions all of these differences are creating riffs that it is not easy to overcome and ultimately Benjamin Franklin with his famous diagram of the snake cut into pieces Join or Die he's essentially saying we have to put aside all of those divisions all of those differences things that make us unique as colonies and as individuals and we have to come together in common purpose so this religious absurge becomes an impediment to creating that Unity that will be necessary to push off Britain it's going to be something that they will have to deal with and that is not an easy thing to overcome so we have the revolution and they start putting together a new country and they have to decide what they're going to do about religion. They remember the religious upheaval and all the differences the different groups fighting with each other and they know it's going to be a problem but Jefferson is really the one who pushes the central idea here we need to make sure that no religion is pushed officially by the US government it's the only way to stay insulated from it all also Jefferson has a distinct reason for this as a reaction to all of these things going on religiously there's an upsurge in what became known as enlightened Christianity that is trying to reconcile the differences between Enlightenment ideas and Enlightenment thinkers scientists who have been challenging religious doctrines of the church and this Rising tension between religion and secular minded approaches to society so people are saying you know these Enlightenment ideas can coexist with religion it's possible to bring them together and have them exist harmoniously so they start pushing ideas like rational Christianity well a lot of the Christian groups don't really like it when people come in trying to trying to shoehorn their beliefs and their faith system into modern political and scientific ideas to see if they can kind of mess up yet there's a lot of people who are trying to find that middle ground especially scientists who are saying: we're interested in how the world works but that doesn't mean that we're not religious Isaac Newton was a devout Christian and he did not want to somehow have his ideas used to prove that religion isn't accurate as a matter of fact he went out of his way to try to show that Christianity could coexist with scientific ideas that the ideas he was bringing for about how the world worked How the Universe worked there was no conflict and he's not the only one John Locke put out about life liberty and property as the natural rights that all humans have I mean we even quote him and his phraseology in the Constitution the Fifth Amendment no person can be denied of life liberty or property without due process of law that's straight out of law John Locke was also concerned about this battle between Enlightenment and religion and he put out an essay saying it was entitled The reasonableness of Christianity trying to show that Christianity is reasonable it is rational logical. There's nothing about it that is unscientific unmodern he's saying it is reasonable to be Christian and be a thinker being a scholar being a scientist so all of this is coming to a head when America is coming to grips with how do we deal with religion Thomas Jefferson was one of the key people who was one of the big formers of the American government we all know this right he wrote the Declaration of Independence. He was talking extensively with James Madison as the as the Constitution was being drawn up. James Madison was the main author of the Constitution but Jefferson's right there talking about these ideas as Madison's writing him down so he had huge influence over what America will be. Jefferson was not a Christian. He was a follower of a particular religious approach called deism it was one of these Enlightenment influenced religious movements during this. Of time and it's something that he was not alone in it Benjamin Franklin was also a deist and he was also very influential in the formation of the American government that was to come. What is a deist? Anybody know what it is? Nobody never heard of it? Okay. Deism is basically a religion where you believe in a higher power you believe that there is this all-powerful deity out there that created the entire universe. But at the same time assuming that that God is going to have a personal relationship with each and every person is the height of arrogance and hubris on humanities part to assume that you can have a personal relationship with God is like assuming that an ant looking up at you can have a personal relationship with you they put it on the same basic level. so while God created the universe created the earth created us. The whole system is set to moving and here we come and now it's our job to run it God's not doing God things we are the ones here and so ultimately is our job to keep things running this is a really convenient religion you believe in a higher power but there's no active responsibility it shapes your world view but you don't go to church you don't have to you can pray if you want to but chances are you're not going to bother because he's not going to be listening anyway. See what I mean? So Jefferson is a deist and a lot of people considered him a religious heritic. A lot of the religiously minded people respected Jefferson's ideas about government but at the same time look down upon his personal choices because he was somebody who was immoral and he was a blasphemer he was putting out these false religious ideas so they condemn them for those also he tended to like the Finer Things and he tended to have sex with a lot of his female slaves especially one in particular who really was more of a mistress to him than just a slave that he was trying to breed with so he took a lot of abuse for that. But Jefferson was able to get put in this idea of separation of church and state specifically that the United States would not have one specific religion that was the official religion Bane had an official religion England had an official religion France had an official religion America was not going to do it as a matter of fact he wanted to put a provision when they were coming up with the Bill of Rights to protect people from any government in interference in their freedom to practice whatever kind of religion they chose freedom of religious expression. That was straight out of Jefferson. Does that mean that the United States in its early formative years was unaffected by religion? course not. most people who are American are Protestants. Some of these religious ideas get tied very romantically into the creation of America and looking at it's Destiny. The American Destiny they say it has a manifest destiny. you heard that phrase before manifest destiny? The basically God has given given the United States this unique chosen privileged position of being the poor thinking, front running, Godly country. And it is our destiny and our duty to spread the  so it is an expansionist ideology and not only does it use religion to justify expanding it uses religion to demand expanding that is their duty to ense so Manifest Destiny is pushing people that is what Manifest Destiny really locks into place but at the same time you have these competing Calvinists versus non-calvinist ideas out there as well now if I were to say Manifest Destiny is this calvinist or non calvinist? Do you remember what constituted Calvinism and what constituted non Calvinism? Who is Calvin's big rival intellectually anyone you guys don't remember what we covered a week ago huh? Calvin believed in this free Destiny yes predestination that everything has already been decided there is a destiny and we have no choice we have only the illusion of choice but our position here is to act out God's plan to carry out his will that's Calvin everything has been predetermined. Now if I say Manifest Destiny does that sound like him yep you hear that Destiny we have a destiny we we have this Mission by God yeah that's that's Calvin whereas Luther was saying people have freedom of choice. God gave you the right to choose your path and what you choose is up to you. So this is more out of Calvin's mindset but there's a lot of people who follow Luther's idea and there's a lot of people who don't really want a religious bend on the national thought, so they take it different look at things is this Venture that we're on is this America embracing its destiny or is it a competing vision? The grand experiment. Notice it being put in terms of science. The enlightenment secularism Americans on this Grand experiment we're trying something new it may succeed it may not we don't know until we do it. we're gonna tru and if something we try doesn't work we'll adjust it and if we succeed great if we don't hey we give it a shot. It's an experiment. This is more of a secular approach as opposed to this is America's Destiny a religious approach. So even the early visions of America are tied into this competing Vision between the religious and the secular. America goes through a big transformation Society goes through a major transformation there's a lot of social upheaval there's a lot of people saying we'll have had a class structures work. There are political shifts going on there are religious shifts going on there's all sorts of up people as people are adjusting to their new country. they're figuring out how things work. well one thing that happens is the people realize that what they really want, what America is defined by is not what they believe, It's what they want. And what do Americans want? Stuff. All kinds of stuff we call this Quest for Stuff consumerism we are consumers. Our job is to consume. How many of you have purchased something online in the last week my hands up? yeah, how many have not? Liars. if I were to say the last two weeks more hands would probably drop if I were to say the last month almost everybody's hands would drop we do business online. As a matter of fact that's one thing that makes cell phones so incredible there was a time when phones were simply for talking to people and then we started carrying them with us everywhere we went and they were still about talking to people but at a certain point somebody said well you know we can put internet functionality on this thing too. Oh that guy was Steve Jobs by the way you know who that is right? Yeah. Big shaper of your generation. But, during this period Of time, step and trying to figure out how things work and consumerism is really what is defining thing between Britain and France both pensions are rising with them we're trying to stay neutral and they keep pressuring us to pick a side ultimately a couple big embargoes embargoes are where you refuse to trade and it hurts Britain when we launch the embargoes against them, but it also hurts our need for stuff people start going from widthdrawl. Don't buy anything new for the next month see what happens. You're going to start getting twitchy real quick. There is a huge demand for consumer goods. And in order to meet that demand this is really that desperation during the embargoes is really what convinces America that they needed to industrialize. Industrial Revolution in this country. But when industrialization takes hold we get an a social transformation because of that the people who were middle class are starting to go out of business. more and  that they were paying people in factories and most Americans don't want that it is brutally low what they're paying people it's clearly exploited but people who are desperate enough for taking those jobs. And because of that the middle class is shrinking. The working class is growing and the amount of money you have for Stuff is shrinking. Poverty is growing as a result of this change. Poverty brings with its social evils. What do I mean? What does poverty cause what comes out of poverty what are some of the social problems that grow out of poverty okay what's up wyou'll do it more crime yes crime rates Skyrocket people are getting desperate because they don't have enough money even to buy food. If you have a hungry kid believe me you're willing to do a lot to feed that kid so theft other forms of primer on the rise. Child labor yes that will become even more significant later but it does start to kick in a little bit what else? Social illness. The poverty creates if you are dead broke how do you feel? If you feel good? You feel bad so how do you cope with that? Alcohol alcohol consumption. Through the 1820s and 30s Rose to his highest point in American history ever. It's never been higher than that particular point. People drank alcohol all the time. They consumed and consumed huge quantities of alcohol. That was disturbing how much alcohol they were actually consumed. And it has an effect when you have people who are imbibing in alcohol on large scale let's take a person what happens when somebody gets drunk what are some of the problems that come out of that yeah? Okay. Domestic debut domestic abuse is a big one yeah big problem with the rising domestic abuse. Yes what else? Crime will rise because of it sure. Alcohol will cause people to make stupid decisions and do things that if they were sober they may not be willing to do but drunk they'll do them they lose their inhibitions and they they go ahead and do those things sure. There's all sorts of problems that can come out of this but alcohol is a big one. Domestic abuse. Family abandonment becomes big it was really hard for women to make a living. But, if men are feeling so disempowered that when they are working they're not making enough money to support their family, that gets to a lot of people to the point where they just say f it and they abandon their wife kids and take off. the wife Trying to raise those kids on her own that's not easy especially in a day where women being able to go out and get a job that's just not really something that is socially possible at this particular point in time. It's not like today if women want a job today they can get hired easily but back then there was a stigma against hiring women. Women were not seen as the ones who are supposed to be working men are supposed to work. So there's a lot of problems. There's also the problems of how to cope in other ways for example if a man gets off of work, and he's having a hard time paying the bills he's doing the best he can and he comes home and the wife is constantly harping at him, he might have been in him abandon her he might start drinking, or he might do other things look for companionship elsewhere so you see a rise in adultery. Lots of extra marital Affairs you also see a big rise in prostitution. So there's all sorts of different things that are playing into this and everybody said look at the social and moral degradation of America and they are coming up with all sorts of reasons that they point to but the religiously minded people who have been trying to get people's attention for a while say this is God's judgment. And they have a lot of people that they point at. As causing this very few of them actually get it right, but they're pointing at certain things and they said you know what maybe if we were to try to fix some of these things we can do it. And during this period of time you see another big religious upsurge. Here's a constant throughout history when times are hard you're going to see religious activity pick up. People will be looking for comfort in one way or another. Looking for support in one way or another and a lot of people turn to religion for those reasons. So if they kind of strayed from religious activity or they weren't religious to begin with they might get religion because of this. This leads to a period of religious up search that we call the second great awakening. basically the 1820s to the 1840 that period of time and there are some things about it that come out it is a very optimistic approach people are hopeful that they can improve things they are telling people hey religion can help us fix our country and help you fix yourself. It is optimistic it is also saying we can help improve society and ultimately move toward perfecting Society what do we call a perfect Society? Utopia. So utopianism is kind of wrapped into this idea as well so the Second Great Awakening is building an optimism. It's building on hope that you can improve things and perfect things. People are perfectible Society is perfectible. It's also encouraging people to be free thinkers saying, we are appealing to your reason so religiously rather than saying oh you're bad for doing this they say no there is a good reason to do this. And they start explaining the reasons not just the religious view point. And that becomes very successful for example in combating alcohol they start a number of movements that become known as: the temperance movement. A lot of different organizations for them and join this growing temperance movement what is temperance? What is temperance addressing anybody heard of the temperance movement? Or know what it is? Nobody? Okay. The temperance movement is a reform movement meant to either reduce the consumption of alcohol or outlaw alcohol altogether at this particular point in time they're not looking to outline instead they're relying on people's rationality to realize that alcohol is harming them and their families, and they are encouraging people to Simply drink in moderation, cut that, don't drink as much. Are they successful at this? yeah. Over a 10-year period from night from 1830 to 1840 that that period of time, alcohol consumption in America goes down 65%. People are drinking two thirds less alcohol as a nation than they were before. 2/3s that is a huge decline. The temperance movement later that we'll talk about the one at the early 20th century that introduces the period that we call prohibition you know what happens the first year? goes up 20%. They outlaw it and consumption of alcohol goes up 20% nationally. Overnight. which way maybe works better trying to Ram it down people's throats or appealing to their reasonableness and try to explain to them why it's a good idea to cut back? One approach works. one approach clearly did not. Another big thing that kind of gets tied into this is a lot of people are pointing at the social and moral degradation of Americans saying this is God's punishment to a country that tolerates and justifies enslaving people so it becomes part of the Abolitionist Movement. a lot of people religiously join the Abolitionist Movement during this period of time the 1830s especially see a massive up search in people who are religious criminals too. and let's start really looking at who should be locked up in the big prisons and who should not so prison reform is being called for. There's also a lot of new denominations new Splinter groups as people start exploring religious ideas and expanding on them and part of this is with the big upsurge in religious revivals. religious revivals are similar to George Whitfield when he was traveling America he would go to one place and hold a series of meetings for about a week. And during that period of time people came every day to hear and they would get rejuvenated in their religious beliefs they get fired up and they need to move on to another location and hold another Revival well the revivals heat up in a big way during this period of time that's part of what makes the Second Great Awakening so significant. is the massive amount of these revivals that are encouraging people to get fired up about their religion and do something about the social problems of America in the process. So the religious preachers the religious leaders who are holding these revivals become very significant people. There are three I'm going to talk about. The first one we've already kind of talked about a little bit in the race section of the class and this is a guy named Lyman Beecher. Lyman Beecher is from the Northeast. He is one of those people who believes that slavery is a sin against God. So he is very much in line with the Abolitionist mindset but his big thing is saying you know why we have all the social ills and problems why we're being judged by God? It's because we are allowing all of these Catholics to come in and disrupt our great country. Catholics are agents of the Antichrist and they are trying to destroy everything good about our country. He points at Catholics and saying they are the root of all evil they are the problem. And we should be kicking Catholics out getting rid of them from this country they're not real Americans they are bringing us down and God's judgment is upon us because we allow them to come in. So his big thing is anti-Catholics he also spends a great deal of time. Criticizing the sinful pastimes of the poor and saying if they stop doing these things Society will get better too he takes on gambling. who gambles? When you take a look at people who are down buying lottery tickets, do you see a lot of wealthy people buying lottery tickets? No usually it's the working steps that do. It's the poor segment who are doing the most gambling and the reason? They call it home run effect. If I can just make one big score I can take care of problems for a while if I can just hit that lottery number my problems are solved. All of my economic problems go away. This is not a New Concept this has been around for a while looking for ways to connect with that money that free fall and if they can get lucky at the table maybe they can bring home a little bit more cash do they? Not usually. Usually gamblers lose money. So gambling drinking whoring. All of those things are things that feature attacks. And I said we mentioned it before let's talk about how we mentioned it do you remember when we were talking about the Irish immigrants and how they were moving into public service jobs like Police and Fire Fire Department officials and whatnot? Well that was this guy this is Peter's Church they let his church burn down. However beecher have a significant impact not only on the revivals he holds he starts embracing some limited emotionalism he wants to keep it in check he sees a lot of danger with too much emotion but he thinks that a little emotion can be good to help stimulate religious activity so he's advocating within measure with some emotionalism being included. It is in fact his daughter who ends up becoming even more famous than he was and he was fairly well known and popular. But his daughter was named Harriet Beecher Stowe. Anybody heard of her? Uncle Tom's Cabin is one of the pieces of American literature that is famous because it is ultimately one of the biggest abolitionist novels ever written and she was significant enough that eventually she will meet Abraham Lincoln as a visitor to the White House. And he greets her by saying so you're the little lady who started this conflict. ouch. Abraham Lincoln just put the cause of the Civil War at her feet now he said it jokingly, but there's a certain amount of truth to it. She caused a massive upsurge in people standing up to slavery. People say you know what, she's right. This book that she writes is powerful. And she is really contributing to that Abolitionist Movement in a big way. Her book becomes the biggest selling book in America other than the Holy Bible. That's the only book printed that has better sales than her book that tells you how significant her book was at the time too. You heard of somebody being referred to as an Uncle Tom? Okay another preacher who makes a big impact is a man named Charles Finney. Charles Finney was to an extent one of the people who learned from Beecher and he starts holding revivals as well but unlike feature he believes that emotionalism is key to a good Revival he wants to encourage emotionalism and that bothers beer will frequently. He's encouraging the open active participation of women in the Revival now feature includes women women are welcome at the revivals but as far as participation publicly, the belief in America is generally speaking men are public figures women are private figures.