Reform Movements - United States: 1840s - 1930s

1930s

• Art — The Hudson River School defined a distinctive American style of art, depicting romantic landscapes via the Transcendentalist perspective on nature.
• Literature — founding of the Transcendentalist movement, which stressed high thinking and a spiritual connection to all things (see pantheism).
• Science — John James Audubon founded the science of ornithology (the study of birds).
• Utopian Experiments.
  • New Harmony, Indiana (founder: Robert Owen) — practiced economic communism, although it proved to be socially flawed and thus unable to sustain itself.
  • Oneida Commune (founder: John Noyes), practiced eugenics, complex marriage, and communal living. The commune was supported through the manufacture of silverware, and the corporation still exists today, producing spoons and forks for households of the world. The commune sold its assets when Noyes was jailed on numerous charges.
  • Shakers — (founder: Mother Ann Lee) Stressed living and worship through dance, supported themselves through manufacture of furniture. The furniture is still popular today.
  • Brook Farm (founder: George Ripley), an agriculture-based commune that also ran schools.

• Educational reform — (founder: Horace Mann); goals were a more relevant curriculum and more accessible education. Noah Webster's dictionary standardized English spelling and language; William McGuffey's hugely successful children's books taught reading in incremental stages.
• Women's rights movement — Founded by Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton who organized the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 and published a Declaration of Sentiments calling for the social and legal equality of women. Carried forward by Lucy Stone who began speaking out for women's rights in 1847, and organized a series of national conventions. Susan B. Anthony joined the cause in 1851 and worked ceaselessly for women's suffrage.
• American labor movement — The campaign against excessive hours of work (and for the eight-hour day) was a central issue for the labor movement during the 19th century. The Knights of Labor, organized among the skilled trades in 1869 and led by Uriah Stephens, Terence Powderly and Mother Jones, was succeeded by the American Federation of Labor, the Congress of Industrial Organizations (combined now as the AFL-CIO), and the Industrial Workers of the World.
• Child labor reform
• Family planning
• Abolition movement — The addition of Mexico's former territories in 1848 at the conclusion of the Mexican-American War reopened the possibility of the expansion of race-based chattel slavery; the adaptation of the slave system to industrial-style cotton production resulted in increasing dehumanization of black workers and a backlash against slavery in the northern states; key figures included William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass.
• Know-Nothing movement, also anti-Catholic, anti-Masonic, and nativist (1845–1856)
• Prohibition or Temperance movement -- Characterized by Frances Willard's Woman's Christian Temperance Union, which stressed education (formed 1881, declined in 1940s) and Carrie Nation's Anti-Saloon League (established nationally by Howard Hyde Russell), which promoted a confrontational approach towards bars and saloons. Other significant organizations include the Prohibition Party and Lincoln-Lee Legion.