Overview
This video is a great overview of all of the social movements that we are discussing in this unit. He touches on religious movements, including the Shakers, Mormonism, and the Second Great Awakening. He also focuses on the industrial revolution, the temperance movement, Irish and German immigration, the creation and reform of asylums and prisons, education reform, and the abolitionist movement. For information on the Suffrage movement, he also has a Crash Course History video on Women in the 19th Century.
Irish and German Immigration
This brief YouTube video will give you an essential background of the immigration that occurred during the mid-19th century in America. This video discusses the reasons for the influx of immigration and the effects that immigration had on life in America. This unit will focus specifically on the Irish and German immigrants that are discussed in this video.
This website focuses mainly on the Irish immigration to America during the 19th century. The link will take you to the page concerning the religious conflict and discrimination that occurred following the rise of the immigrant population. This is a useful website because not only does it include various sections regarding the causes and effects of Irish immigration, but it includes vocabulary games and primary source documents as well.
PBS's Destination America is originally a documentary of immigrants coming to America. It includes much more than just the Irish and German immigrants that we discuss in this lesson. This website gives dates and times for the local viewing of the full documentary, but it also has a variety of resources that can be used with or without the viewing the video. There is a tab for US immigration that includes reasons for immigration and the timeline of immigration into America. You can even take a quiz to test your knowledge of US immigration. The resources tab provides links to outside reading, web resources, and a way to trace your own genealogy.
Ideals in Art and Literature
This video was originally created by a student, but is still a great introduction to romanticism in American art and literature during the 1800s. She discusses the themes of romanticism and transcendentalism, identifying both authors and artists that headed the movement, including Thoreau and Emerson.
This website is informative in nature and includes a vast array of secondary and primary sources about the transcendentalist movement. The site not only discusses the authors of transcendentalism and their respective texts, but also includes roots, influences, and criticism of the movement. This is a great resource to find sources for transcendentalism in the 1800s.
Religious, Prison, and Education Reform
This is a video re-enactment of a revivalist sermon by Reverend Jedidiah Burchard. This is the type of sermon that would have been given during the Second Great Awakening, a religious revival movement that took place in the mid-19th century. It is not necessary to watch the entire video, but the first few minutes will give you an idea of what this movement was like and what its followers believed at the time.
This website highlights one of the central historical figures in the movement to reform prisons and asylums in the mid-1800s. Dorothea Dix is credited with enacting social change that improved the lives of prisoners and inmates. Viewing this site on Dix will help you understand why the movement started and give you essential background that is necessary for understanding it.
Chesapeake University gives a detailed background of the education reform movement in the 19th century, which is more commonly known as the common school movement. This website gives an overview of the movement and provides links for images of old schoolhouses, in order to see what education was like back then.
The Abolitionist Movement
This video is a very brief introduction to the causes behind the start of the abolitionist movement. The professor in the video discusses the two main reasons for the start of the movement.
History.com is a great resource for the Abolitionist movement. It not only gives you background information for the movement but there are a number of videos about the movement and the movement's leaders. For more in depth information into the leaders of the movement, you can follow the links to their highlight pages on the same site. These pages may also include speeches or other resources to view.
Like the PBS source on Destination America, American Experience is originally a documentary series. The video of the Abolitionist portion of this series can be viewed online at this link. You can also view the full transcript, clips from the series, related books and websites, an interactive abolitionist map, and a related photo gallery. There are also bonus videos that you can view about the topic.
The Suffragist Movement
This video is a re-enactment of Susan B. Anthony's suffrage trial. In this video you can see the ideals that were the basis of the women's rights or suffrage movement. It is a great background to the suffragist movement.
This is an informative site regarding the women's rights movement. It focuses on the history of women's rights, beginning in 1848 with the Seneca Falls Convention. There are images included throughout the document and more information on women's rights, including women in government can be found on the left-hand side of the page.
The link for this page will lead you to a timeline of the suffrage movement, provided by the National Women's History Museum. The site contains many more resources including: interactives, online exhibits, videos, and quotes regarding the history of women's rights. Explore this site if you want to broaden your knowledge of this topic, past the point of the right to vote.