Progress in Pre-Civil War America (Module 7)

I believe "progress" can be defined as simply "moving forward". "Progress" is change from the status quo. It is a positive change, one in which evolution and growth has occurred.

Progress was gained in some areas of American life during the time period of before the Civil War; however, I believe progress was significantly compromised in the abolitionist movement. Workers did not gain any major, national victories in the early to mid-1800s; however, they did begin to organize and advocate for better working conditions, hours, and pay, gaining success on the local level. Efforts to increase the opportunity to public education in the United States were particularly successful. In 1827, Massachusetts became the first state to mandate compulsory education for children, supported by taxes (1, 375). In the North and West, it was now common for European American children between the ages of five and nineteen to attend school (1, 375). The temperance movement was also successful in their attempts to decrease alcohol consumption within the country, decreasing the amount consumed per person by half within forty years (1, 377). Efforts were begun to help prostitutes by organizing charity and work for them and in New York, antiprostitution groups were successful in lobbying the state legislature for criminal penalties against male clients, and not just the prostitutes themselves (1, 377). Dorothea Dix was especially crucial in the movement to reform inhumane treatment of insane people, successfully lobbying Massachusetts for a state asylum with her descriptions of the infamous conditions mental patients faced (1, 377). Traveling throughout the country for more than twenty years, advocating in favor of humane treatment for the mentally insane, her impact was felt. By 1860, twenty-eight states had state supported institutions for the mentally insane (1, 377). There were also movements to reform prisons, and provide "orphanages, homes of refuge, and hospitals", especially in growing and industrializing cities (1, 377). In 1848, almost 300 women and men gathered in Seneca Falls, New York (1, 358) to hold the "first women's rights convention in American history" (1, 384). There they approved most of the measures making up the Declaration of Sentiments, "a petition for women's rights modeled on the Declaration of Independence", including calling for legal rights, the right to own property, the right to custody of their children in cases of divorce, the right to higher education, and of the right to fully participate in religious activities (1, 358). Following the convention in 1848, women gathered every year to hold women's rights conventions and to work for equality between the sexes (1, 384). Before the Civil War, incremental progress was gained in favor of granting women equal rights; however, the greatest progress would come after the conflict. However,-- the largest reform movement-- the abolitionist movement fighting for the emancipation of African American slaves consisted largely of compromises enacted by the Congress to placate growing Northern objections to slavery and increasing Southern defenses of their slave society. The Civil War would ultimately decide the success of the abolitionist movement with the emancipation of the slaves.

Though progress did occur in the United States from the time of colonial America in the 17th century to pre-Civil War era America in the mid-19th century, true progress would not come in the country until the various movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Even though some significant progress was made in various reform movements of the time, the movements demanding rights for women, African Americans, and children had yet to win any real victories. How can you consider a country "progressed" in any way if it views women, children, and enslaved African Americans to be the property of other people, mostly European American men? and free African Americans and women have no civil rights to speak of?

Work Cited:

(1) Faragher, John Mack, et al. Out of Many. 5th ed. Vol. I. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2006. 2 Vols.