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The Second Great Awakening was a decades long series of religious revivals that made the United States a genuine Christian society. Evangelical denominations began the revival during the 1790s, and would spread their message to seacoast cities and the backcountry of New England.

Evangelical beliefs was that God had made man a moral free agent, one who was able to choose salvation. This doctrines was attractive to members of the middle class, who accepted personal responsibility for their lives and improved their material condition, welcoming Finney's assurance that heaven was also within their grasp.

Charles Finney was a prebysterian minister who found a new way to propagate religious values. He was born into a poor farming family and underwent an intense religious experience and chose to become a ministry, where he would preach that God would welcome any sinner who submitted under the Holy spirit. He would greatly accelerate the Second Great Awakening, which was a wave of Protestant revivalism that begun after the Revolution.

Summary
Evangelical beliefs appealed to the middle class of society, stating that there is no such thing as predestiny and you are able to get into heaven no matter your social status. This would bring upon the Great Awakening, a religious revival that swept up America and would change the way that everyone thought things. (Anyone was able to get into heaven)

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Northern women transformed public education, who were led by Horace Mann to increase elementary schooling and improve the quality of instruction.

Mann lengthened the school year as well as establishing teaching standards in reading, writing, arithmetics and recruited well educated women as teachers.

Dorthea Dix used money from her grandparents to set up charity schools to rescue some of America's miserable children's from vice.

In 1841, she persuaded Massachusetts lawmakers to enlarge the state hospital to house indigent mental patients, and started a national movement to establish state asylums for the mentally ill.

Summary
With changes in both the educational and prison system, this movement would change the way that society viewed both of these things. For example, by establishing the importance of education and recruiting women as teachers, it helped society grow both in education and women's rights, where women had more job opportunities and were seen as members of society.

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During the 1840s, women rights activists created a pragmatic program of reform, where they attempted to strengthen the legal rights of married women by seeking legislation that permitted them to own property.

The Declaration of Sentiments stated that all men and women are created equal, and issued a rousing manifesto extending to women the egalitarian republican ideology of the Declaration of Independence.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucrecia Mott organized a gathering of women's rights activists in the town of Seneca Falls in 1848 to create the Declaration of Sentiments, a document that targeted the egalitarian republican ideology of the Declaration of Independence.

Summary
The women right's activists attempted to expand the rights women were given, stating that men and women were created equal. This movement would lead to the 19th amendment, stating the women were free to vote and would lead to more changes in society and the educational system.

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Political Cartoon about the Know Nothing Party

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The know nothing began in the middle of the 1830s, and called for a halt to immigration as well as mounting a cultural and political assault on foreign-born residents. Gangs assaulted Irish youth and employers restricted Irish workers to menial jobs, and Temperance reformers denounced the German fondness for beer.

Irish numbered 200,000 while Germans numbered 110,000. German foods and shops became a part of the city's culture (New York), while Irish migrants found allies in the American Catholic Church.

Gangs would assault Irish youths on the street, clearly stating that they were not welcome to New York.

Summary
Attempting to kick out the Irish and Germans from taking job opportunities as well as having different mindsets of religion, Americans assaulted youth and restricted the jobs that they could take. The new political and religious views would shed light to new perspectives for the Americans, changing the way they viewed things.

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Minstrelsy began around 1830, where actors put on blackface and performed song and dance routines. They poked racist fun at African Americans, portraying them as lazy, sensual, and irresponsible while using them to criticize white society.

The Female Moral Reform Society was founded to develop a sharp consciousness of gender, where they became public actors. They tried to curb prostitution and to protect single women from moral corruption.

The Temperance movement bolstered women authority within the society and gave them new influence over areas of family life (such as the timing of pregnancies). Publications thought women how to make their homes examples of middle class efficiency and domesticity.

Commercialized sex formed one facet of the urban culture. Sporting men were able to engage freely in sexual conquests, and prostitutes openly advertised their wares on Broadway.

Summary
The Temperance movement as well as the Female Moral Reform Society both tried to stop the gender inequality that was running around America. This movement would lead to other women-related movements such a the Declaration of Sentiments in Seneca Falls.

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6,500 mormons fled from the United States, all of which were led by Brigham Young where Congress named Young as its governor. He would rule in an authoritarian fashion, determined to keep the ascendancy of the Mormon church and its practices alive.

Mormons faced hostility due to their unorthodox religious views and communal solidarity. After the murder of founder Joseph Smith Jr, the Mormons migrated along the path of the Oregon Trail to Fort Bridger and eventually settled along the Wasatch Range in the basin of the Great salt Lake in present day Utah.

Mormons were constantly harassed for their unorthodox religious views and communal solidarity. Smith struggled to find a home for his new religion.

Mormons had patriarchal power as well as authoritarian leadership, leading them to be provoked more than the radical utopians did. However, they continued to practice their 1st Amendment, the freedom of religion and continued to practice their religion.

Summary
Mormonism, a religious viewpoint known for their unorthodox religious views and communal solidarity, were significant because they embraced the concepts of Christianity as well as revelations made by Smith. Mormonism would challenge the normal views on religion and change the mindset of Americans for future generations to come.

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Shaker's dancing as a part of their worship

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Shakers were known as the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Awakening because of their ecstatic dances that were a part of their worship

Shakers became the first successful American communal movement, forming communities all over New England, New York, and Ohio, and relied on conversions and adoption of orphans to increase their numbers (disliked sexual intercourse)

Noyes, who previously set up a perfectionist community near Putney Vermont, relocated near Oneida, New York where he would radically change the viewpoints on sexuality and gender roles

Radical questioning of traditional sexual norms and capitalist values/class divisions of the emerging market society made them stand out as blueprints for a more egalitarian social and economic order.

Summary
Utopias were based on the fact of not only gender equality as well as an idea of perfectionism, leading to a community that viewed sexuality and gender roles in a different way from the rest of society. This radical mindset would make them stand out, as well as paving the way for a more egalitarian social and economic order.

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Transcendentalism was a movement that originated in the religious soil of New England, whose first advocates were Unitarian ministers. They turned to European romanticism, which was a new concept of self and society (embraced human passion and sought deeper insight into the mysteries of existence).

A unitarian, Emerson stood against mainstream American Protestantism. He believed in God being a single being, not a combination of the holy spirit, Jesus, and God.

Henry David Thoreau heeded to Emerson's call and sough inspiration from the natural world. He would public accounts of his search to find meaning beyond the artificiality of civilized society.

Leaves of Grass, a poem published in 1855 and written by Walt Whitman, was recorded to verse Whitman's efforts to transcend various invisible boundaries between solitude and community.

Summary
Transcendentalism changed the radical mindset of the Americans, allowing for them to experiment with the idea of individualism and human passion. This idea would foreshadow the start of the Civil War, where slaves from the South would become empowered and start to fight back.