The antebellum years in the American history are known as the years of rapid changes in various spheres of social life. The drive for reforms was defined by the economic, technological and social progress that deemed the existing social structure unacceptable for all member of the American society. Several factors were involved in this process. Among those were the Industrial Revolution, the religious movement that is known as the Second Great Awakening, the utopian communities, the transcendentalism intellectual movements and others. “They [the reformers] hoped to change American life by creating ‘heavens on earth’” (Foner, 2014, p.434).
Prior to the antebellum years the structure of the American society was based on the independent farms that run a self-supporting style of life. Industrialization has brought a significant increase in productivity. Market economy made most goods available for purchase, rather than self-manufactured and thus created a new social structure. Antebellum years saw the creation of the middle class. The new social group was created on the concept of earning a good salary and the possibility of making a decent life on it. The new class, as well as other social classes saw new opportunities not only to change their lives for better, but to dramatically re-shape the American society as a whole.
Protestant religious movement played an important part in the antebellum period reformation movements. Religious upturned was initiated in Tennessee and Kentucky (OpenStax College, 2014, p.365). The rapid growth in the church membership. The most important event of the Second Great Awakening was the transition of black slaves to Christianity. This process was one of the cornerstones of the Abolitionism movement against slavery.
Transcendentalism movement was one of the factors of non-religious nature that shaped the collective consciousness of the American society. The movement condemned the primitive “mass culture” of the time and promoted individual development and natural lifestyle in harmony with nature. Even though the leaders of transcendentalism were far from reality in their basic principles, they played an important role in antebellum period public opinion formation.
Utopian society experiments were another prominent feature of the antebellum period in the history of the United States. The number of the utopian communities is hard to estimate, but they were very popular at the time (Foner, 2014, p.437). Those societies were based in different ideological grounds, such as religion or social justice and equality. “These communities differed greatly in structure and motivation. Some were subject to the iron discipline of a single leader, while others operated in a democratic fashion” (Foner, 2014, p. 435). Their existence and success is a clear indication of the drive for better life and change in the American society. “Nearly all the communities set out to reorganize the society on a cooperative basis, hoping to restore social harmony” (Foner, 2014 p.435)
Another prominent feature of the antebellum years were various social movements, such as abolitionism, equal rights for women and temperance movements. Eric Foner points out to the most important feature of such movements: “[I]n the absence of a powerful national government, American’s political and social activities were organized through voluntary associations – churches, fraternal orders, political clubs and the like” (Foner, 2014, p.433). New technologies were closely related to the popularity of new social movements. “Antislavery leaders took advantage of the rapid development of the print technology and the expansion of literacy due to common school education to spread their message” (Foner, 2014, p.446). The voluntary nature of the various freedom movements, as well as other social organization for public health and intellectual development shows a massive desire of ordinary Americans for changes in their lives and the social structure.
The antebellum period reforms movements were represented by advances in all areas of social live in the United States. Economic changes have been followed by religious revival, social experiments and freedom movements. These factors show, that the desire for reforms was formed within the American society and not imposed by a certain political movement or party. It represented the irreversible civilizational advance in the history of the United States.
References.
Foner, Eric. (2014) Give Me Liberty. An American History. W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.
OpenStax College. (2014) U.S. History. Rice University
