Second Great Awakening Dbq Essay

1359 Words6 Pages

The Market Revolution brought numerous changes in the United States. The creation of factories meant that employees needed less expertise in order to get a job and there were more employment prospects for people. However, because of this new method of working, people's lifestyles are also altered. Many Americans were no longer attending church on a regular basis, and the new developments in technology and economy also caused cultural disruption. As a result, there was a decline in religion. In order to address this, in the beginning of the nineteenth century, there was a religious revival known as the Second Great Awakening that emphasized the importance of free choice and an intimate relationship with God, inspiring individuals to pursue religious …show more content…

The Second Great Awakening’s religious ideas had a major influence on the Temperance movement. During the Second Great Awakening, people desired to convert non-Christians to Christianity and did so by emphasizing the value of devotion to God. An example of this is in document 4, where Finney states in a newspaper article that Christianity will bring tremendous benefits and purify the world of sin. His purpose for stating this is to reach out to non-Christians for them to understand the importance of reaching out to God to be forgiven for their sins, this would make them more likely to convert to Christians. The Second Great Awakening was intended to establish a flawless society in which no one had any sins, this sparked the Temperance movement. Around this time, each person was consuming tremendous amounts of alcohol. The consumption of alcohol was considered a sin and in order to stop this …show more content…

During this time many people wanted to continue with slavery and treat others inferior. However, in the sermons given out about Chirstianity people spread the message that everyone is equal to God which is why slavery should be abolished. In document 3, Walker talks about the importance of being free and reaches out to people to become abolitionists and to slaves to fight for their freedom. This is significant because the author wants to help abolish slavery due to all of the suffering slaves have gone through and he does this to support the idea that everyone is the same and that they should show God that they can fight for their freedom. This shows that the religious ideas of the Second Great Awakening did have a great impact in the slavery abolition movements because due to the sermons and the idea that everyone is equal in God’s perspective many people were influenced to become abolitionists and help end slavery. Some slavery abolitionists were women that made newspapers and gave out sermons to support the idea that slavery should end. However, during this time no one paid attention to women since everyone believed they should not work in ‘challenging’ jobs that have to do with politics and economy. They believed in the “Cult of Domesticity '' because during the Market Revolution everyone expected men to work in factories and women to stay

Open Document