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In the 1820s and 1830s a revival religious feeling swept throught the nation. The Second Great Awakening was what this period was called. During this time, people gathered in churches and big white tents to hear a meesage of hope. Charles Finney, a leader of the movement urged Christians to let themselves be "filled with the spirit of God."
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In 1831, a man named William Lloyd Garrison started a fiery abolitionist newspaper, the Liberator. Despite the disapproval of northeners, Garrison demanded the immediate freeing of all slaves.
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In 1837, Ohio's Oberlin College became the first college to admit women as well as men.
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In 1841, started a community called Brook Farm near Boston. People who lived there tried to live in "brotherly cooperation" instead of competing with each other, as people who lived in a larger society would.
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In 1841, a woman named Dorothea Dix agreed to teach Sunday school at a jail. What she saw horrified her. She saw inimates bound in cages and locked in chains and Children accused of minor thefts thrown in prison with adults. She also saw the Mentally ill who were locked away in dirty, crowded prisons. After witnessing all of this she gathered information about what she had seen and prepared a detailed report to the Massachusetts state legislature. Shocked by DIx's report change began.
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On July 19. 1848 almost 300 people, arrived for the Seneca Falls Convention. The convention organizers modeled their proposal for women's rights, the Declaration of Sentiments, on the Declaration of Independence. Stanton's presentation of the declaration at the convention was very powerful and gained her a lot of support. The Convention helped to create an organized campaign for women's rights.
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By the 1850s, many states in the North and West used Mann's ideas. Soon most white children attended free public schools.
