Reform movement

United States Reform Movements of the 1840s

1. Art -- The Hudson River School of Art[?] defined a distinctive American style of art, depicting romantic landscapes via the Transcendentalist[?] perspective on nature
2. Science -- John James Audoban[?] founded the science of ornithology (the study of birds)
3. Utopian Experiments
   1. New Harmony[?] (founder: Robert Owen[?]), practiced economic communism, although it proved economically unviable
   2. Oneida Commune[?] (founder: John Noyes[?]), practiced eugenics, complex marriage[?], and communal living[?]. The commune was supported through the manufacture of silverware[?], and the corporation still exists today, producing spoons and forks for households of the world. The commune sold its assets when Noyes was jailed on numerous charges.
   3. Shakers -- (founder: Mother Ann Lee[?]) Stressed living and worship through dance, supported themselves through manufacture of furniture, still popular today.
   4. Public education reform[?] -- (founder: Horance Mann[?]), goals were a more relevant curriculum and more accessible education. Noah Webster's dictionary standardized English spelling and language; William McGruffery[?]'s hugely successful children's books taught reading in incremental stages.
   5. Literature -- founding of the Transcendentalism[?], stresed high thinking and a spiritial connection to all things (see panthesism[?]).
   6. Women's rights movement (1848) (founders: Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony), began at the Seneca Falls Convention; published a Declaration of Sentiments[?] calling for the legal equality of women.
   7. Prohibition Movement -- Anti-alcohol movement supported by Frances Willard[?]'s Women's Christian Temperance Union, which stressed education; the Anti-Saloon League[?], which Carrie Nation[?] promoted a confrontational approach towards bars and saloons; and the Know-Nothing Party[?], an anti-catholic, anti-immigration, anti-drinking politcal party.
   8. Abolition movement, 1820-60