important social, religious, and cultural

aspects of the early 19th century in the United States.

In fact, I might even make the argument that

it's impossible to understand the early 19th century

without understanding The Second Great Awakening

because as you can see here,

it's kind of connected with everything,

so what was The Second Great Awakening

and why was it such a big deal?

The Second Great Awakening was a period of religious revival

in the United States

where church membership really soared.

A lot of people had conversion experiences,

meaning that they had a moment where they

came to understand their personal relationship with God

and want to change their ways to become a more

religious individual and give up their ways as sinners.

So church membership really soared

and lots of new people joined churches, particularly women.

Now, you'll note that this is called

The Second Great Awakening because there was,

in fact, a First Great Awakening,

which happened in the 1730s, 1740s

and that was the era of Jonathan Edwards

and sinners in the hands of an angry God.

It was very localized in New England

and specifically, with Calvinism

or Puritan religious awakenings,

so that was a separate event

that happened about 100 years before

and The Second Great Awakening,

as I have drawn here, generally,

historians say it lasted from about 1790 to 1850,

but I would say that the real heyday

of The Second Great Awakening would be

from about 1820 to 1840.

Those are hazy dates, but that's kind of

the hot period of The Second Great Awakening.

In this series of videos, I wanna explore

some of the aspects that led to The Second Great Awakening,

particularly the market revolution

and a bunch of other social, political, cultural,

and even religious changes that were happening beforehand

and then also explore some of the

consequences of The Second Great Awakening.

What parts of early 19th century American culture

are really tied up with this wave in religiosity?

So what was The Second Great Awakening like?

Well, here's a painting of what I would call

kind of the central aspect of The Second Great Awakening,

which were camp meetings.

So unlike The First Great Awakening,

which was definitely a New England thing,

The Second Great Awakening took place

largely more on the Western part of the United States.

Now, when we're talking about Western part,

we're talking about Western part circa 1820,

which is gonna be Western New York,

Kentucky, around Appalachia.

These were places that didn't have

the kind of strong established church religion

that you might have found in a place like Massachusetts

and so preachers would set up camp meetings.

They'd have a big stage.

People would come in tents

and they would listen to these preachers

and these preachers would attempt to convert

the audiences to a more active

and particularly, evangelical form of Christianity.

Evangelical Christianity comes from this word,

evangelical, evangelist,

like the four evangelists of the Bible,

who were the men who wrote the gospels

and the idea of evangelical Christianity

was a real strong attachment to the Bible

and an attempt to make kind of heaven on Earth,

so to make the world below

the same as heaven above.

So they're kind of trying to bring about

a terrestrial paradise, if you will

and many of the religious movements that come out of this

are particularly concerned with

what we would call, really, the apocalypse

or in more contemporary terms,

sort of millennialism or millenarianism.

I know this is a big word, but more or less,

the idea that they want Jesus Christ

to return to Earth and rule for 1,000 years

over a perfect earthly paradise.

Now, when you and I think of the apocalypse,

we usually think that's a bad thing,

but most evangelical Christians in this time period

really wanted the apocalypse to happen

because it meant that heaven would happen on Earth.

Now, these camp meetings were really interesting.

You know, they're happening kind of out on the frontier,

so it's kinda the coolest show in town,

to go see this itinerant preacher.

They're often called circuit riders,

so that is a preacher who literally rides around on a horse

because he does not have an

established congregation of his own,

so he goes from town to town, setting up meetings,

preaching, and hopefully converting people

to evangelical Christianity,

but the camp meetings of The Second Great Awakening

were characterized by a really

emotional response from individuals.

People who were having conversion experiences

and you can see it here in this painting.

They would kinda go into fits.

They might fall over and shake or bark like a dog

because they had been so overcome

by this religious spirit.

So you can imagine how camp meetings like this,

as people heard about them,

would've really affected the general populous.

If you heard about a story where your friend

went off to this camp meeting and they had

this incredible conversion experience

where they realized how important it was

to give up sin and devote one's life to Christianity

and working to bring heaven on Earth,

you might go check it out yourself.

So two of the most famous preachers

of The Second Great Awakening were Lyman Beecher,

who was based out of Ohio later in his life,

and you might be familiar with this name, Beecher,

because Lyman Beecher was the father of

Harriet Beecher Stowe, who wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin.

One of Beecher's concerns was

just that society in general in the United States

was becoming more secular and taking a very

rational approach to religion,

as opposed to an emotional approach to religion.

He wanted people to feel religion very deeply.

He was kind of working toward a period of religious revival

and got one in The Second Great Awakening.

The other really famous preacher from this time period

was Charles Grandison Finney

and Finney traveled around

and drew just crowds in the thousands.

20,000, 30,000 people might gather to hear him preach

and you can notice here that I have

Finney and Beecher facing away from each other

'cause they didn't entirely get along.

One of the reasons they didn't get along

was because Finney approved of women preaching in public,

which was definitely a no-no for the time period.

So what was unique and new about the theology

of The Second Great Awakening?

Well, let me give myself a little bit more space here.

Well, I've already mentioned some things here.

One that, it's taking place out on the frontier

in huge ecstatic camp meetings

where people were behaving in a way

that would have been very strange in a Puritan church,

falling down, shaking, shouting aloud

and also that it was concerned with

this idea of millenarianism

or trying to create heaven on Earth

to bring about the rapture,

to bring about the return of Jesus Christ

to Earth for 1,000-year reign.

Also, that it served to inspire

many converts to be better people,

to do good on Earth,

to try to bring about this heaven on Earth.

Now, contrast this with some of the religious establishment

in the United States, specifically the Puritans.

Right, Puritans were Calvinists,

which meant that they followed the doctrine of John Calvin,

which meant that they believed in predestination.

Predestination is the idea that before you're born,

God already knows and has decided

whether or not you are saved, one of the elect

or whether you are damned and going to hell,

so there's really nothing you can do

because either you are one of these elect

or you're one of the damned,

so your personal actions make no difference

in whether or not you're going to get into heaven.

The Second Great Awakening really kinda rejects this notion.

You can see that in kinda two different ways.

One, they do think that it matters if you do good, right?

So your time on Earth is not just kind of

wading through a veil of tears,

waiting until you get to heaven or don't,

depending on what your status is,

so doing good works,

trying to improve the world around you

does make a difference in your salvation

and we'll see as this goes forward

how that really animates people toward

all kinds of social reforms in this time period.

The other thing this does is really democratizes religion.

Right, if the world isn't already separated

into the elect and the damned,

then anyone has a chance of salvation

and you see that in many aspects

of The Second Great Awakening.

They allow women to preach.

Women become really strong members,

influential members of these communities of faith.

They preach to whites, blacks,

free, and enslaved people alike,

so all races are eligible for salvation

and you also don't have to be a wealthy church father

to be influential in religion.

You know, people like Lyman Beecher and Charles Finney.

They weren't born wealthy.

They weren't born as the scions of,

say, the Mather family in Massachusetts,

which had been one of the most important

religious families in Massachusetts,

so The Second Great Awakening really attracted

lots of poor people, people on the frontier.

It wasn't a religion of the elite.

Now you don't have to be educated

at the seminaries of Harvard or Yale

to have a Christian conversion experience.

So this is the essence of The Second Great Awakening

and in the next video, I'll talk a little bit more

about the social forces that caused

The Second Great Awakening and the consequences

of its proliferation in early 19th century America.