The 19th century was a time of great change in the United States. As immigration to the country increased exponentially and a new wave of religious fervor took hold of the nation, new social characters began to emerge and resistance to all these changes began to permeate the minds, streets and even the laws of society. As print evolved into a new medium for the masses, sensationalism was born along with cities of York. The exponential growth of these cities and the problems that have arisen from it have all become indelibly associated with these places and the people who live there. Reformers began to attack immigrants, and used their sexual association, vice, and lower class to their ends. The root of the temperance movement, for example, is deeply intertwined in society with the lower class and, in particular, poor immigrants almost all but made up of that class. Temperance is the practice of restraint in all, especially alcoholics. Alcoholism is blamed for mental illness, poverty, and crime—all of which immigrants and urban life associate.
This is, in part, due to the emergence of the penny as a pervasive medium of mass. Before the 19th century, the mass of printed media was available to people only through access to the upper class, in the trend of literary prescriptions. The reading of the Mass began to gain favor in all walks of life, however, as religious and reformed groups of minds sent out pamphlets and tracts, mostly free of charge, to vast numbers of American people, rejecting the idea that it could only be financially viable. to read.# It was not until the middle of the nineteenth century, however, that the penny press became widely read (and most shameful) by the masses. Universally accessible both financially and culturally, the penny press provided local sensationalist news to the newly urbanized population. Along with creating a sense of community among the masses of readers, these papers tap into the prevailing fears and curiosities of nineteenth-century Americans. Much like today’s stories in the news, they are very focused on the penny crimes and vices in the city, giving meaning. danger and evil lurked around every corner. These financial tables have indirectly (though perhaps not unwittingly) improved many movements in activity.
Another major part of the reformation is women, whether its cause, its supporters, or its promoters. Consider the major reform movement of the nineteenth century. Abolitionism dealt with the intrinsic injustice of serving a man in a country where every man is imagined to be equal. Slavery revealed an ugly discrepancy and so the Americans finally moved to eradicate it. The fact that women have not yet been given the rights of slavery, the abolition of slavery is more inappropriate within the basic institution of the Nation. Thus the women’s movement grew directly out of abolitionism.
Therefore, women saw temperance (and later prohibition) as a way to eliminate the scourge of alcoholism in the family. Women living in urban areas experienced poverty first hand, often inflicted by an alcoholic breadwinner. Women living in isolated rural homes were forced to endure the constant terror of living with a wandering and possibly violent addict without any hope of protection and rescue. they unite in support of the movement.# When they are involved in the new political arena of moral reforms, they have also taken one step into the public sphere “.
Temperance was not the only moral reform movement that allowed women to appear in public. Whether lobbying against prostitution, abortion, alcoholism or slavery, women have inadvertently created an effective niche for themselves in a world that was once an exclusively male public. In addition to behavioral reform, women also entered the new world of female workers from the private sector of the female home. In this new world, women developed their lives in response to the rules and powers of the authorities, in an environment much more suited to anonymity and freedom. Certainly the new place of women is not in doubt. In 1848, prominent abolitionists and women’s rights advocates Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott drafted a new Declaration of Independence. A statement of opinion to all men and women. The Mechanic Advocate, a men’s magazine, promptly responded to the declaration, calling it a “parody” and announcing that women would “attend these meetings [Women’s Rights Conventions], no doubt at the expense of their own responsibilities…” # This response was one of the most incendiary movements of moral reform. 19th century illuminates: not the battle of the sexes per se, but the unassailable emphasis on women’s sexuality and their “place” in society.
One of the most famous reforms is the anti-abortion movement. As abortion has grown in visibility, profit and use, Americans seem to be dealing with the ethics of abortion in itself, rather than the product of a “greater” sin, non-reproductive sexual activity. However, it can most certainly be argued that ethics, depending on whether the fetus is technically alive, has little to do with concerns about abortion. The custom, most common in urban areas and, of course, with the lower class, has now become more than a form of shame control. Women used abortion as family control. It is a horrible and undeniable fact for Americans that immigrants and prostitutes of the lower classes appeared not only women abortions. . The infamous Madame Restell, who provided abortions and contraceptives to countless New York women, had a house that Nicola Beisel describes as “the only manifestation of the practice that saved each family from social disgrace, but represented… the family’s exit… Its existence shows that the chastity of respectable women was hardly incorruptible.” the freedom to make their own choices about their families and their fertility. This represented a major change in the complex social-sexual structure of American life. -for-women”>the idea of women having any power was truly terrifying.
The story of Mary Rogers is an interesting case study of events that often drive reform. Found dead in the Hudson River in 1841, the young and beautiful Mary became an unlikely icon of the American New World. We can connect the events and circumstances of Mary’s short life with almost all of the most pressing fears of 19th century Americans. “Defined by sexuality and an apparently violent death” # Maria was a member of the threatened female class, she became a victim of the dangerous urban state, sexually avid and analyzed by the penny press and is supposed to be later. the victim of a botched abortion. While the reformers used highly sensitive stories of Mary as a vehicle to advance their agenda, Mary means so much more. His story took place at the very historical time when the tide began to turn more violently in America, and thus his death signifies the death of an age. His death indirectly sparked interest and movement in police reform, immigration and power, and the new laws that tried to renew the new order of the gigantic metropolis that was New York. New York. As America expanded economically and yet became more repressed in matters of sexuality and social life, Mary’s tragedy and the countless stories that developed from it became a love story of the city along with a cautionary tale in which “issues of race interweave visions of sex, violence, and urban chaos…” # Mary, like other immigrants and women who made or sanctioned the Reformation, also represented the rise of power and the importance of American rejection. The death of a poor and rather small woman could make, however indirectly, such a stunning chain of movements of both political and social events (especially the reform movements), an unassailable Testament to increase the power and significance of these cultural pariahs.
While most historians directly link immigrants, slaves, or women to the Reformation, few have expressed the combined power of these people. Americans, in the 19th century, certainly felt the proverbial ground shifting beneath their feet, as the fundamental pillars of their society were called into question and destroyed. Ironically, the movements for moral reform most often set out to prevent change were often the instigators of that very change, or at least signaled its coming. In a rural village, refugees arose from the inconvenient and foolish in their constitution, who shocked the country out of their hypocritical stupor. Free slaves, for example, certainly as intelligent and worthy as (if not more than) their oppressors, spoke with the support of many (including women), and slavery was eventually abolished. With this momentous event, a new people (if not yet integrated) was introduced into our society, and new famous and important people became an indelible part of the country’s history. Hence the immigrants were forced to remain in poverty, not because of lack of power or desire, but because of discretion. As visibility and importance grew, this became apparent, and humanitarian reform was born with a slow but steady convergence of stakeholders. Women were perhaps the most powerful instigators of the reform, and probably those who benefited most. Trapped within the restrictive confines of the private feminine sphere, women were precious and yet their true potential had not yet been unlocked. It was women’s sexuality that inspired many of the reform movements and stifled women’s voices to become powerful. It is substantial to affirm that women play the leading role in the explosion of moral reform of the 19th century, and their involvement marks the moment in and other refugees American society finally began to get its due.
