# data[].attributes.body
Both the prison system reforms and education system reforms were largely contributed to by women, giving women an increased sense of value and belonging in society and leading them to push for change.

# data[].attributes.body
- Dorothea Dix established many charity schools and state asylums after discovering "insane' women were being jailed with male criminals. Her reports on state penitentiaries also prompted states to improve prisons and public hospitals
- Horace Mann, secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education from 1837 to 1848, created education reforms in math, reading, and writing.
- Women became the majority of the teachers in Mann's new education system. Catharine Beecher, intellectual leader of the new women educators, created fervor for women around teaching which caused many women to become educators and solidified women as a major contributor to American public life.

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
Dorothea Dix, major reformer of American prison and mental asylum systems

# data[].attributes.body
A major cultural revolution of the 1840s was the Women's Rights Movement. Very much interconnected with many of the other movements, especially the abolition movement, the Women's Rights Movement saw major advances for women's property rights especially.

# data[].attributes.body
- Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott were major women's rights activists of the 1840s.
- In 1848, they organized the Seneca Falls Convention which issued a manifesto reminiscent of the Declaration of Independence. It argued for the equality of women and men and repudiated the idea of separate spheres.
- The Declaration of Sentiments was given at the Seneca Falls Convention which was the aforementioned manifesto
- Abolition and the Women's Rights Movement were closely correlated: women, being oppressed, saw something of themselves in the enslaved populations that led to them supporting abolition.

# data[].attributes.body
Irish and German immigrants contributed greatly to American culture during the 1820s cultural revolutions. Their existence and immigration also sparked controversy among nativists.

# data[].attributes.body
- Nativists in New York stood in strong disapproval of the wave of Irish and German immigrants arriving in New York. They beat up Irish people and denounced the Germans' drinking habit.
- These nativists formed the Know Nothing Party in 1844 where, in addition to dismissing and abusing immigrants, also focused on temperance and anti-Catholicism to win votes.
- German foods became part of New York City's culture with the large wave of immigrants arriving especially in the late 1840s.
- Irish immigrants became the main body of the Catholic Church in America.

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
A hamburger, the not-so-American, very-much-German food that has become one of the most American foods of all time

# data[].attributes.body
While the 1820s were a time of sinful revolution in terms of commercialized sex, the norms of sporting men, and minstrelsy that were created, this time period also saw counter-movements to these like the temperance movement and Female Moral Reform Society.

# data[].attributes.body
- The temperance movement began to curb drinking. It succeeded in reducing people's alcohol intake using revivalist methods like group confessions and prayers.
- Many women became prostitutes and commercialized sex was rampant, especially in New York. There were lots of brothels and men who lived very hedonistic lifestyles in regards to having lots of sex that they paid for.
- Minstrelsy was a popular form of entertainment beginning in the 1830s in which actors would put on blackface, dance unnaturally, and sing in unintelligible words. These shows were very racist and mocked pretty much every social group in America including the Irish and German immigrants, the upper-class, and women.
- The Female Moral Reform Society, founded in 1834 in New York City, succeeded in curbing prostitution and protecting single women from moral corruption.

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
Jim Crow as portrayed by John Dartmouth Rice

# data[].attributes.body
The 2nd Great Awakening led America to develop religiously into its present state: America becoming a largely Christian nation in the way that it has today is due largely to this movement. This movement also preached individual salvation which had a profound impact on the population in that it led to many other reform movements.

# data[].attributes.body
- Revivalists, newly spiritually-enthusiastic preachers, helped create communities bonded with religion for pious families and unchurched people. Methodists and Baptists used loud sermons and big, country-wide preaches to increase in population at an unprecedented rate.
- Inspired by George Whitefield and the 1st GA in that they used theatrical preaching styles.
- Charles Grandison Finney believed that people were moral free agents who could choose salvation. This struck a chord with many new middle class citizens who were hit with the other cultural revolutions emphasizing individual choice.
- As Protestant Christianity spread to slaves in the south (albeit quite slowly), they found inspiration in Judaism and their liberation, stoking the flames of the abolition movement.

# data[].attributes.body
While these utopian societies failed pretty bad, their significance lay in their challenge of capitalism and social hierarchy and order.

# data[].attributes.body
- Ann Lee Stanley established the Shaker society in 1774 after she had a vision where she was an incarnation of Christ four years prior. Shakers pretty much challenged every social norm of the time including common property ownership, strict oversight by church officials
- shakers needed to keep their numbers up by adopting orphans since they repudiated sex and making babies
- Albert Brisbane subscribed to French reformer Charles Fourier's utopia of socialism. The failure of Fourierism exemplified the inability for utopian societies to be sustained without a charismatic leader
- Oneidas, founded by John Humphrey Noyes, were based in perfectionist ideals. They, like the Fouriers, did not succeed.

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
Meditating in Nature: A Very Transcendentalist Activity

# data[].attributes.body
The Transcendentalist movement ran counter to the industrialization occurring in America at the same time. The rise of industry and monotonous factory occupations gave rise to this movement which aligned with nature and individuality.

# data[].attributes.body
- Transcendentalism began with wealthy New England people who questioned the strictness of their religion and were inspired by European romanticism, leading them to embrace human passion and the mysteries of existence.
- Emerson preached that people needed to have solitary revelations in nature to truly feel God and become a free human being. Emerson really rejected traditions and strongly emphasized individualism.
- Henry David Thoreau wrote Walden, or Life in the Woods in 1854 where he detailed his soul-searching experience living in a cabin in the woods for two years. Demonstrated his advocacy for self-thought and peaceful rejection of conformity.
- Leaves of Grass published by Walt Whitman in 1855 outlined how Whitman believed that his connection to nature made him innately connected to other human beings.

# data[].attributes.body
Mormons were able to maintain numbers and communities by employing strict religious control and adhering to the growing American ideals of individualism and economic privatization.

# data[].attributes.body
- Joseph Smith began the Mormon Church after having religious revelations which he translated from gold plates shown to him by an angel.
- Smith's disciple Brigham Young migrated to present-day Utah which officially became the hub-for-Mormons Utah that we know and love today in 1850.
- A war was launched against the Mormons by President James Buchanan in 1856. Ended in 1858 when Utah acknowledged federal authority.
- Mormons, under their strict religious control and with their endorsement of individual enterprise, contributed greatly to the U.S. and allowed them to not die out.

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
Brigham Young's beard and Brigham Young, Governor of Utah and former leader of the prophet of the Mormons.