Ch 12: Chapter 12: An Age of Reform (1820-1860)
About This Chapter
How it works:
- Identify the lessons in Prentice Hall America's An Age of Reform chapter with which you need help.
- Find the corresponding video lessons within this companion course chapter.
- Watch fun videos that cover the reform movement topics you need to learn or review.
- Complete the quizzes to test your understanding.
- If you need additional help, rewatch the videos until you've mastered the material or submit a question for one of our instructors.
Students will learn:
- Major reform movements of the 1800s
- Origin of slavery in the U.S.
- Growth of slavery in the South
- Key abolitionist movement leaders
- Pre-Civil War opposition to slavery
- Women's rights and 19th-century feminism
- Women's opportunities for advancement in the 1800s
- American Renaissance art and literature
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1. Reform Movements of the 19th Century
Inspired by the Second Great Awakening and Transcendentalism, Americans started a number of social reform movements in the antebellum era, including the fight against alcohol and slavery, as well as the fight for public schools, humane prisons and asylums, and women's rights.

2. Slavery in America: Cotton, Slave Trade and the Southern Response
The United Sates was conceived on the idea of freedom and the rights of all people, but early on, an institution took hold that was the exact opposite of that idea. In this lesson, find out the roots of slavery in the States, how it took hold, how slaves lived, and how they resisted the bonds of slavery.

3. Slavery in Early America: Characteristics & Opposition
The institution of slavery in early America was a source of both economic profits and divisive tensions. It began as a peculiar institution of colonial society and blossomed into a sectional issue that threatened to destroy the young United States.

4. Abolitionist Movement: Important Figures in the Fight to End Slavery
The abolitionist movement spanned decades. Although slavery did not end peacefully, great Americans like William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, and Harriet Beecher Stowe were some of the driving forces behind the anti-slavery movement.

5. Uncle Tom's Cabin and Tension Over Slavery in the 1850s
Uncle Tom's Cabin captured the plight of slaves in the 1850s like no other book. The novel, coupled with the Missouri Compromise and the Fugitive Slave Act, served to further strain the country, which was at a breaking point over the issue of slavery. This lesson details these events.

6. Feminism in the 19th Century: Women's Rights, Roles, and Limits
In this lesson, we explore the early women's rights movement and their rejection of traditional gender roles in the 19th and early 20th centuries in the United States and Great Britain.

7. Advancement for Women: Education, Employment & Rights
In this lesson, we will take a look at the advancement of women's rights during the 19th and early 20th centuries. We'll learn about the key events and themes surrounding the 'first wave' of the feminist movement and see how they impacted society.

8. American Renaissance: Uniquely American Art, Literature and Culture
America began creating its own distinct culture in the 1800s. Learn about popular trends in art, literature, and pop culture in the antebellum era. Also, learn how religion and utopian communes changed the way some Americans lived.
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Other Chapters
Other chapters within the Prentice Hall America: History of our Nation: Online Textbook Help course
- Chapter 1: Roots of the American People (Prehistory-1500)
- Chapter 2: Europe Looks Outward (1000-1720)
- Chapter 3: Colonies Take Root (1587-1752)
- Chapter 4: Life in the Colonies (1650-1750)
- Chapter 5: The Road to Revolution (1745-1776)
- Chapter 6: The American Revolution (1776-1783)
- Chapter 7: Creating the Constitution (1776-1790)
- Chapter 8: Launching a New Nation (1789-1800)
- Chapter 9: The Era of Thomas Jefferson (1800-1815)
- Chapter 10: A Changing Nation (1815-1840)
- Chapter 11: North and South Take Different Paths (1800-1845)
- Chapter 13: Westward Expansion (1820-1860)
- Chapter 14: The Nation Divided (1846-1861)
- Chapter 15: The Civil War (1861-1865)
- Chapter 16: Reconstruction and the New South (1863-1896)
- Chapter 17: The West Transformed (1860-1896)
- Chapter 18: Industry and Urban Growth (1865-1915)
- Chapter 19: Political Reform and the Progressive Era (1870-1920)
- Chapter 20: The United States Looks Overseas (1853-1915)
- Chapter 21: World War I (1914-1919)
- Chapter 22: The Roaring Twenties (1919-1929)
- Chapter 23: The Great Depression and the New Deal (1929-1941)
- Chapter 24: The World War II Era (1935-1945)
- Chapter 25: The United States in the Cold War (1945-1963)
- Chapter 26: The Civil Rights Era (1945-1975)
- Chapter 27: The Vietnam Era (1954-1976)
- Chapter 28: New Directions for a Nation (1977-2000)
- Chapter 29: Challenges for a New Century (1980-Present)