Good day, Scholars!

Add a new entry in your journal – REFORMERS

What is a Reformer?• Reformer

• (noun) • a person devoted to bringing about change in

society.

• American reformers were fighting to perfect human institutions and ideas.

• Many reformers were the products of religious beliefs and frontier democracy who believed in the freedom of the individual.

• They were fighting to perfect the society in which they lived.

ImmigrantsPush factor

Reasons that forced people out of their native land and to a

new world.Pull factor

Reasons immigrants were drawn to America.

Women’s Suffrage (right to vote)

• Women’s Rights• Elizabeth Cady Stanton• Lucretia Mott• Sojourner Truth

• Seneca Falls Convention• Seneca Falls, New York• July 19 and 20, 1848• Fredrick Douglass attended• Discussed Women’s Suffrage movement

Temperence movement

• Campaign to end alcohol consumption• Heavy drinking was common in 1800’s• Many men spend $$$ on alcohol, causing women

to join the Temperence Movement.• Business owners also joined the cause. Workers

that were drunk were unproductive.• Some states began banning alcohol. • By 1855, 13 states had banned the sale of alcohol.

Workers’ rights• Lowell Mills workers form a labor union.• In 1836, the mill owners raised the rent on the

boarding houses where the women lived. • 1500 workers went on strike.• Strikes took place in other parts of the country

over the next few years asking for shorter hours and higher wages.

• In 1840, Martin Van Buren passed a law = 10 hour workday for all government workers.

Education Reform• 1830’s American’s demand better schools.• Horace Mann sets up first state board of education.• Mann called public education, “the great equalizer”• By 1850, many Northern states opened public

elementary schools.• Women still could not attend most colleges.• Oberlin was the first college to accept women as

well as men.

Mental Illness• 1841• Dorthea Dix, Sunday school teacher at a women’s

jail• Discovered women held in filthy conditions because

of their mental illnesses• No treatment for mentally ill• Appealed to the Massachusetts legislature and then

traveled all over the country calling for reform.• Her efforts led to the building of 32 new hospitals.

Abolition (End Slavery)

• William Lloyd Garrison• Published antislavery newspaper “The Liberator”

• Abolitionist speakers• Fredrick Douglass• Sojourner Truth

• Former slaves• Spoke of their own experiences

• Underground Railroad• Harriet Tubman• Estimated between 30,000 and 100,000 slaves

escaped through the Underground Railroad

Groupwork• Each group will be assigned a type of

reform in the 1800’s.• Read the section in the History Alive book.• Complete the flow map for your section on

your reading notes.• Choose the person that will represent your

historical figure.• Prepare your “script”.