Ap Us History: Unit 4: Chapter 13: Key Terms

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The Age of Reason

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Thomas Paine’s anticlerical treatise that accused churches of seeking to acquire “power and profit” and to “enslave mankind”.

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Second Great Awakening

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Religious revival characterized by emotional mass “camp meetings” and widespread conversion. Brought about a democratization of religion as a multiplicity of denominations vied for members.

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lyceum

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(From the Greek name for the ancient Athenian school where Aristotle taught.) Public lecture hall that hosted speakers on topics ranging from science to moral philosophy. Part of a broader flourishing of higher education in the mid-nineteenth century.

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Maine Law of 1851

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Prohibited the manufacture and sale of alcohol. A dozen other states followed Maine’s lead, though most statutes proved ineffective and were repealed within a decade.

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New Harmony

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Communal society of around one thousand members, established in New Harmony, Indiana by Robert Owen. The community attracted a hodgepodge of individuals, from scholars to crooks, and fell apart due to infighting and confusion after just two years.

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Shakers

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Called “Shakers” for their lively dance worship, they emphasized simple, communal living and were all expected to practice celibacy. First transplanted to America from England by Mother Ann Lee, the Shakers counted six thousand members by 1840, though by the 1940s the movement had largely died out.

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transcendentalism

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Literary and intellectual movement that emphasized individualism and self-reliance, predicated upon a belief that each person possesses an “inner-light” that can point the way to truth and direct contact with God.

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Deism

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Eighteenth century religious doctrine that emphasized reasoned moral behavior and the scientific pursuit of knowledge. Most deists rejected biblical inerrancy and the divinity of Christ, but they did believe that a Supreme Being created the universe.

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Burned-Over District

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Popular name for Western New York, a region particularly swept up in the religious fervor of the Second Great Awakening.

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Mormons

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Religious followers of Joseph Smith, who founded a communal, oligarchic religious order in the 1830s, officially known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Mormons, facing deep hostility from their non-Mormon neighbors, eventually migrated west and established a flourishing settlement in the Utah desert.

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Woman’s Rights Convention at Seneca Falls

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Gathering of feminist activists in Seneca Falls, New York, where Elizabeth Cady Stanton read her “Declaration of Sentiments,” stating that “all men and women are created equal”.

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Brook Farm

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Transcendentalist commune founded by a group of intellectuals, who emphasized living plainly while pursuing the life of the mind. The community fell into debt and dissolved when their communal home burned to the ground in 1846.

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Hudson River school

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American artistic movement that produced romantic renditions of local landscapes.

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“The American Scholar”

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Ralph Waldo Emerson’s address at Harvard College, in which he declared an intellectual independence from Europe, urging American scholars to develop their own traditions.

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American Temperance Society

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Founded in Boston in 1826 as part of a growing effort of nineteenth century reformers to limit alcohol consumption.

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minstrel shows

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Variety shows performed by white actors in black-face. First popularized in the mid-nineteenth century.

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Unitarians

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Believe in a unitary deity, reject the divinity of Christ, and emphasize the inherent goodness of mankind. Unitarianism, inspired in part by Deism, first caught on in New England at the end of the eighteenth century.

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Oneida Community

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One of the more radical utopian communities established in the nineteenth century, it advocated “free love”, birth control and eugenics. Utopian communities reflected the reformist spirit of the age.