Frederick Douglas
A self-educated slave who escaped in 1838, he became the best-known abolitionist speaker. He wrote an autobiography on slavery and later edited an anti-slavery weekly, the North Star.
Harriet Tubman
The most famous worker of the Underground Railroad who helped slaves escape to freedom.
Nat Turner
Leader of a slave rebellion in 1831 in Virginia. Revolt led to the deaths of 20 whites and 40 blacks and led to the "gag rule' outlawing any discussion of slavery in the House of Representatives.
William McGuffey
Created the nations first and most widely used series of textbooks.
Horace Mann
A Common School/Education reformer who became the first secretary of education in the state of Massachusetts.
Catharine Beecher
She was a noted educator, renowned for her forthright opinions on women's education as well as her vehement support of the many benefits of the incorporation of a kindergarten into children's education.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The leading transcendentalist whose rich writing style and power of his ideas of transcendentalism made him a very important author of America and influencing the Transcendentalist Movement.
Henry David Thoreau
A major transcendentalist who believed in the power of self-reliance and individual thought. In 1845 he began living alone on Walden Lake, near Concord, MA, living simply, hoping to live a very meaningful life.
Robert Owen
A British social reformer who purchased Harmonie, Indiana and renamed it New Harmony and attempted to build a Utopian community.
Dorothea Dix
A reformer and pioneer in the Prison Reform Movement to treat the mentally ill, beginning in the 1820's, she was responsible for improving conditions in jails, poorhouses and insane asylums throughout the U.S. and Canada. She succeeded in persuading many states to assume responsibility for the care of the mentally ill.
Lucretia Mott
A Quaker who attended an anti-slavery convention in 1840 and her party of women was not recognized. She and Stanton called the first women's right convention in New York in 1848
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
A prominent advocate of women's rights and organized the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention with Lucretia Mott.
2nd Great Awakening
A religious movement in America during the 1820's and 1830's.
Reform Era
A period during which thousands of Americans sought to reshape American life from the 1830's-1860's.
Abolition Movement
Movement led by Fredrick Douglass and others to end slavery.
Temperance Movement
The campaign to limit the use of alcoholic beverages.
Common School Movement
The movement where people set out to better common schools and educate more children.
Transcendentalist Movement
A movement in New England where people believed the philosophy of observing to have a deeper/truer understanding of the world.
Utopian Movement
A movement during the late 1700s and into the mid-1899s whose members worked to establish a perfect society through utopian communities.
Prison Reform Movement
A movement aimed at structuring prisons will feel remorse for their crimes and have a separate facility for the mentally-ill.
Great Irish Famine
A time when a blight hit the potato crop killing one million from starvation and having over one and a half million emigrating.
Irish Immigration
The race that faced the most discrimination because of their sheer numbers, their poverty, and their religion-Roman Catholic.
German Immigration
The race that also immigrated in large numbers, but settled out west, and were middle class.
Push vs. Pull Factors
Factors that cause people to leave a country vs factors that cause people to immigrate to a country.
Nativism
Opposition to immigration.
Know-Nothings
A social group who promoted anti-immigrant feelings and later became the political party, the American Party.
American Party
The political party who became of the Know-Nothings.
Tenements
Poorly made, crowded apartment buildings that were inhabited by poor American city-dwellers.
Urban Working Class
Cramped working conditions, dangerous jobs and long hours, low wages unsanitary conditions.
Urbanization
The social process whereby cities grow and societies become more urban.
Industrialization
The development of industries for the machine production of goods.
Cult of Domesticy
A movement to encourage women to give up their jobs and return to their homes.
Reform Societies
Groups organized, usually by churches, to promote social reforms.
Seneca Falls Convention
Created by Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton that first took place on July of 1848 for women's rights.
Declaration of Sentiments
Issued during the Seneca Falls Convention that demanded women's equality.