1. How was the work of James Fenimore Cooper the culmination of an effort to produce a truly American literature? What did his work suggest about the nation and its people?
2. Why was Whitman called the poet of American democracy?”
3. Who were the transcendentalists? What was their philosophy, and how did they express it in literature?
4.
How did the transcendentalists attempt to apply their beliefs to the problems of everyday life at Brook Farm? What was the result? What other utopian schemes were put forth during this period? How did they propose to reorder society to create a better way of life? How did the utopian communities attempt to redefine gender roles? Which communities were most active in their efforts and what did they accomplish? Who were the Mormons? What were their origins, what did they believe, and why did they end up in Utah? (Pages 326-334)
What gave rise to the crusade against drunkenness? What successes and failures resulted from this movement’s efforts? How did the efforts to produce a system of universal public education reflect the spirit of the age? How did the rise of feminism reflect not only the participation of women in social crusades but also a basic change in the nature of the family? How did feminists benefit from their association with other reform movements, most notably the abolitionists, and at the same time suffer as a result? (Pages 334-341) What was the anti-slavery position of William Lloyd Garrison? How did he transform abolitionism into a new and dramatically different phenomenon?
What role did black abolitionists play in the movement? How did their philosophy compare with that of Garrison? Why did many Northern whites oppose abolition? How did they show this opposition? What divisions existed within the abolitionist movement itself? How did abolitionists attempt to arouse widespread public anger over slavery through the use of propaganda? What was the most significant work to emerge from this effort? Why did it have such an impact?
Vocabulary:
- Antebellum Period
- Temperance
- 2nd Great Awakening
- WCTU
- Revivalism
- Dorthea Dix
- Millennialism
- Thomas Gallaudet
- Mormons
- Horace Mann
- Joseph Smith
- McGuffey Readers
- Transcendentalists
- Sarah Grimke
- Ralph Emerson
- Lucretia Mott
- Henry David Thoreau
- Elizabeth Cady Stanton
- On Civil Disobedience
- Susan B. Anthony
- Brook Farm
- Seneca Falls Convention
- Utopian Societies
- American Colonization Society
- Shakers
- Abolition
- William Lloyd Garrison
- Oneida
- The Liberator
- Hudson River School of Art
- Gradual v. Immediate Emancipation
- Washington Irving
- Frederick Douglass
- James Fennimore Cooper
- Harriet Tubman
- Nathaniel Hawthorne
- Sojourner Truth
- Sylvester Graham
- Amelia Bloomer
- Burned Over District
- Phrenology
- Circuit Riders
- Walt Whitman
