Change and Continuity in American Democracy: Early 19th Century Reform

Fall 2004

Overview to an Era

Background Essays and Timelines

Readings:

Introduction to Ron Walters, American Reformers, 1815-1860 (pp. 3-19)

Introduction to Carolyn Karcher, A Lydia Maria Child Reader (pp. 1-19)

Alan Brinkley, "Jacksonian America," chapter 10 in The Unfinished Nation

Andrew Jackson's first and second annual messages to Congress

Links:

Early American Fiction Author: Lydia Maria (Francis) Child (1802-1880)
Lydia Maria Child published the tract Appeal for that Class of Americans Called Africans. A prominent abolitionist, Child and her husband co-edited the National Anti-Slavery Standard. She published numerous works during a life-long career as an author and advocate of issues such as women's rights.

Andrew Jackson's Second Annual Message
Announcement of the progress of the removal of the Indians beyond the white settlements.

Native Rights

Youth reading:

Cornelia Cornellison, Soft Rain

Primary source documents:

Elias Boudinot (Cherokee), "An Address to the Whites"

Lydia Maria Child, "The Church in the Wilderness" (pp. 31-46)

Background reading:

A Lydia Maria Child Reader, Introduction to Part 1 (pp. 25-30)

Elias Boudinot: native rights and the language of reform

Phil Deloria, "Fraternal Indians and Republican Identities," in Deloria's Playing Indian

Links:

American Indians in Jacksonian America: A Look at the Indian Removal Act of 1830 and the Mashpee Revolt of 1833
Unit Plan that explores the different points of views Americans had concerning Indians in early 19th-century America. The essential question of the curriculum: How did the treatment of Native American Indians in Massachusetts compare to the National politics regarding Indians during the presidency of Andrew Jackson?

Slavery and Freedom

Youth reading:

Patricia and Fredrick McKissack, Sojourner Truth, Ain't I A Woman

Primary source documents:

Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs, Narrative and Incidents in one volume

George Fitzhugh, "The Universal Law of Slavery"

Lydia Maria Child, "Letters from New York-Number 12" (pp. 209-215)

Background reading:

A Lydia Maria Child Reader, Introduction to Part 3 (pp. 135-152)

Remembering Sojourner Truth: the problem of historical interpretation

Links:

Lesson Plan: Antislavery
What arguments did the abolitionists use to oppose slavery? What arguments did their opponents use? Why did so many people in the North resist antislavery reform in the 1830s and 1840s?

"The Universal Law of Slavery," by George Fitzhugh
George Fitzhugh advocates slavery.

Women's Rights

Youth reading:

Lori Kenschaft, Lydia Maria Child: A Quest for Racial Justice

Primary source documents:

Sojourner Truth, "Ain't I a Woman?" speech

Background reading:

Kathryn Kish Sklar, "Our Rights as Moral Beings,"

introduction to Sklar's Women's Rights Emerges with the Antislavery Movement, 1830-1870

Links:

Sojourner Truth Biography
Slavery and freedom, taking the name Sojourner Truth, and years in Battle Creek

Living the Legacy: The Women's Rights Movement 1848 - 1998
History of the movement and detailed timeline provided by thw National Women's History Project.

Upstate New York and the Women's Rights Movement
A full report of the woman's rights agitation in the State of New York, would in a measure be the history of the movement. Here the first Woman's Rights Convention was held, the first demand made for suffrage, the first society formed for this purpose, and the first legislative efforts made to secure the civil and political rights of women.

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Educational Resources
Adult Discussion Procedures
Sixth Grade Inquiry Example
The Kidnapped Prince

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