Abolitionism Worldwide movement to end slavery. In the United States the term chiefly applies to the antebellum reformers whose cause culminated in the Civil War, 281
Cult of True Womanhood An ideal of middle-class womanhood in the early nineteenth century that asserted that women were naturally pious, pure, and submissive; exemplars of Christian precepts; and best-suited to supervise the moral development of the family, 271
Lyceums Locally sponsored public lectures, often featuring writers, that were popular in the nineteenth century, 291
Romanticism A loosely defined aesthetic movement originating in the late eighteenth century and flowering during the early nineteenth century; it encompassed literature, philosophy, arts, and music and enshrined feeling and intuition over reason, 285
Second Great Awakening A wave of religious enthusiasm, commencing in the 1790s and lasting for decades, that stressed the mercy, love, and benevolence of God and emphasized that all people could, through faith and effort, achieve salvation, 274
Seneca Falls Convention A meeting, held at
Seneca Falls, New York in 1848, that affirmed that
“all men and women are created equal” and sought the franchise (vote) for women, 284
Shakers A religious commune founded by Ann Lee in England that came to America in 1774. Shakers practiced celibacy, believed that God was both Mother and Father, and held property in common, 276
Temperance movement A reform movement of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in which women and ministers played a major role and that advocated moderation in the use of alcoholic beverages, or, preferably, abstinence. The major organizations included the American Temperance Society, the Washingtonian movement, and the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), 280
Transcendentalism A diverse and loosely defined philosophy that promoted a mystical, intuitive way of looking at life that subordinated facts to feelings. Transcendentalists argued that humans could transcend reason and intellectual capacities by having faith in themselves and in the fundamental benevolence of the universe. They were complete individualists, 286
World History
