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Reform Movements of the Nineteenth Century Stations

Guiding Question

  • How did reform movements in the early nineteenth century address the social and economic challenges of the era?

Objectives

  • I can analyze the different reform movements from the nineteenth century.
  • I can analyze a historical quote and match it to the reform movement it supports.

Table of Contents

  • Station 1 Abolition
  • Station 2 Education
  • Station 3 Prison Reform
  • Station 4 Religious Reform – Second Great Awakening
  • Station 5 Temperance
  • Station 6 Women’s Rights

Station 1 Abolition

Picture
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Art and Artifacts Division, The New York Public Library. “”Am I Not a Man and a Brother” token” New York Public Library Digital Collections. Link to Original Source.
  • What do you think the words mean?
  • Based on the image and the words, what arguments did abolitionists use to persuade others to join their cause?
  • Do you find it convincing?

Station 2 Education

Picture

Mcguffey, William Holmes, Maude Blair, Austin Clark, Publisher W.B. Smith & Co, and Mcguffey Reader Collection. McGuffey’s newly revised eclectic primer, with pictorial illustrations. [Cincinnati: w.b. smith & co. ; new york: clark, austin, maynard & co., between 1860 and 1862, 1860] Pdf. Link to Original Source.
  • What does this book tell us about what reformers wanted students to learn?

Station 3 Prison Reform

Picture

Dix, Dorothea Lynde. Memorial. To the Legislature of Massachusetts protesting against the confinement of insane persons and idiots in almshouses and prisons. [Boston, Printed by Munroe & Francis, 1843] Pdf. Link to Original Source.
  • What were prison reformers trying to achieve by writing this document to the Massachusetts legislature?
  • How did they use evidence and appeals to persuade lawmakers to change how individuals were treated in prisons and almshouses (small homes or shelters built to help poor, sick, or elderly people who had no one to take care of them)?

Station 4 Religious Reform- Second Great Awakening

drawing, Picture

Dubourg, M., Engraver, and Jacques Gérard Milbert. American methodists proceeding to their camp meeting / J. Milbert del. M. Dubourg sculp. ca. 1819. Photograph. Link to Original Source.
  • What does this image tell you about how religion was spreading in early nineteenth-century America?

Station 5 Temperance

Picture

Macbrair, Archibald, Lithographer. Tree of Temperance. ca. 1855. [Cincinnati: published by A.D. Fillmore] Photograph. Link to Original Source.
  • How does this image try to persuade people?
  • Who do you think it was meant to convince?
  • What fruit might the opposite tree, “The Tree of Intemperance” bear?

Station 6 Women’s Rights

drawing, Picture

Our Roll of Honor. Listing women and men who signed the Declaration of Sentiments at first Woman’s Rights Convention, July 19-20. Seneca Falls, New York, May, 1908. Manuscript/Mixed Material. Link to Original Source.
  • What does the act of signing this document represent?
  • Why might it have taken courage to add your name?