The period from 1820-1850 were the years of change for the American society. It was a period of time when the most important and diversified events that occurred in the American history; it was a period of time to break free from old habits and beliefs that had been left behind. The main goal of the reforms was to make the society a better place for everyone. And the reforms did bring magnificent changes to slavery, women’s rights, and people’s morality.
One of the most successful reform efforts was the campaign against alcohol. It was called the Temperance movement. Alcohol was considered a sin by the Evangelicals that it was responsible for many personal and social problems, including unemployment, absenteeism in the work place, and physical violence to women. Equally important, alcoholism destroyed families. Women were especially active in this movement.
In the early 1840’s thousands of ordinary women formed Martha Washington societies to protect families by reforming alcoholics, raising children as teetotallers, and spreading the temperance message. The temperance movement’s success was reflected in a sharp decline in alcohol use.Slavery was another moral issue- a flaw in the character of the American nation. It become so compelling that it consumed all other reforms and threatened the nation itself.
People who rebelled against slavery where called abolitionists. At first only African Americans demanded an immediate end to slavery. In the 1830’s a small number of white reformers also crusaded for immediate emancipation. The most prominent abolitionist was William Lloyd Garrison, a talented journalist who broke with moderate abolitionists by publishing The Liberator -his major weapon against slavery. There were also many moving arguments and speeches that the abolitionists produced. The rebellions were some peaceful and some rather violent.
Many abolitionists were killed by proslavery assailants in riots.Women had realized the discrimination that men had towards slaves and had been prominent in the antislavery movement from the first. In 1833 women in Boston founded the Female Anti-Slavery Society where they discuss the issues of politics and slavery. Usually, women were not allowed to speak in public meetings but two brave women named Angelina and Sarah Grimke challenged both slavery and women’s right by speaking out about the poverty of slavery and how much hurt the slaves encounter.
It was only a matter of time before women involved with abolitionism from the moral opposition against slavery to political engagements on behalf of their own rights. In July 1848 three hundred women and men reformers gathered at the Women’s Rights Convention at Seneca Falls, New York, to demand political, social, and economic equality for women. The convention was organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott and Lucy Stone. Together those people protested women’s legal disabilities- inability to vote, limited property rights, and exclusion from advanced schooling and from most occupations. The result of this convention was the Declaration of Sentiments, based on the language and content of the Declaration of Independence, stating that "all men and women are created equal". Not everyone at the convention signed the resolution on women’s suffrage but it certainly changed people’s view about women’s rights.
The emergence of these movements between 1820-1850 indeed had great impacts on the American society. The society was changing and traditional values were being challenged. America was changing for the better. There is no major part of our lives today which has not been affected by these revolutionary movements.
