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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
A 3 page essay that draws on Steven's Mintz's text Moralist and Modernizers to discuss the social climate of reform in the US during the antebellum era. The writer discusses how this climate influenced the Civil War. No additional sources cited.
Page Count:
3 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_khminref.rtf
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that controlled social behavior had lost their hold. In particular, and most alarming to many of the people of that era, was the fact that gender roles were changing. Young
women were receiving unprecedented opportunities in regards to education and work outside of the family structure (Mintz 8). This new found freedom for women increased public sensitivity to issues of
morality and intensified fears of sexual corruption (Mintz 8). Patriarchy was also losing its hold on children, as sons and daughters were less willing to allow fathers to control their
labor or their choice of a spouse (Mintz 8). Fewer adult children were willing to postpone sexual relations and Mintz asserts that as many as forty percent of all
New England women were pregnant when they married (8). Furthermore, it lawlessness abounded and vigilante violence was commonplace. In cities, the traditional paternalistic methods of controlling public behavior became
totally inadequate (Mintz 9). Complicating this social atmosphere, a democratic, anti-elitist trend took hold in the 1820s, in which popular opinion turned against a vast array of social institutions,
which caused many states to disavow what was perceived as special privilege (Mintz 9). In many states, anyone could practice law, without formal training and, likewise, many states stripped local
medical societies of the power to license doctors. Family patriarchs also saw their legal rights diminished. In reaction to this prevalent anxiety concerning the state of society, a reform
movement evolved that tried to address the "perceived weakness of familial, church and governmental authority" (Mintz 11). This reform movement embodied a cultural obsession with self-control, a preoccupation with suppressing
the "animal instincts, disciplining the passions (and) controlling the sensual appetites" (Mintz 11). The focus of child-rearing in the early nineteenth century became fixed on raising a generation that could
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