Temperance Movement Dbq

The rising opportunities in the United States during the antebellum period, the 1820s to 1850s, had attracted thousands of immigrants to come every year, especially Germans and the Irish. With many immigrants seeking labor to make a living, industry and factory work were able to flourish. The Industrial Revolution that was happening in the United States caused the inventions of an improved printing press and the telegraph. Industrialization was the foundation for what encouraged several groups like women and abolitionists to push for their respective social reforms which provided the means to communicate their ideas with the rest of the nation during the antebellum period.
The Temperance Movement led by women was emboldened by the idea of

social mobility that industry established. Laborers could work in factories and mills to make a living for themselves. However, men who spent their earnings on alcohol had been harmful to their families already struggling to meet ends meet. These drunkards would commit domestic violence and continue to spend their family’s money for their own selfish addiction to alcohol. To Temperance Crusaders, it was necessary to put this to a stop. The Panic of 1837, where many banks had collapsed, inspired the working class to join the movement. By the mid-1840s, alcohol consumption was cut in half. The Irish and Germans who needed to manufacture and drink their alcohol were upset. However, their misfortunes were necessary to improve the economic conditions in the United States for families seeking to earn enough money to survive in this financially competitive industrial environment.
The abolition movement was sparked by the improved communication that was developed during the Industrial Revolution. The upgraded printing press enabled the spread of abolitionist ideals. For one, William Lloyd Garrison’s “No Compromise with the Evil of Slavery”, expressed that all men, including slaves, should be treated as equal. His piece portrayed the villainous institution of slavery as a hypocritical establishment. Garrison conveyed that the Declaration of Independence clearly states that all men are created equal, yet slaveholders dehumanize their slaves and work them to death. The atrocity of slavery and the unjust actions by slave masters were exhibited by the newspapers and other pieces, which helped inform viewers of why slavery should be abolished. Additionally, the slaves who were lent to factories were able to interact with others. As a result, they disclosed their experiences as a slave to the abolitionists who would listen. The harsh tales that were told had inspired those who felt strongly about abolishing slavery to keep pushing for this reform. Some would design paintings and publish literature. Improved technologies like the telegraph and the printing press were the means that enabled abolitionist ideas to circulate in the United States and attract believers to the movement.
The rise of feminism and the push for women’s rights originates from the Lowell System that employed young women to work in textile factories.

Factory jobs gave women the opportunity to make money for themselves and be less dependent on men. However, when more women and immigrants populated the cities, factory owners started to cut women’s wages. They were upset and began to organize and form unions to stage protests and strikes against factories. Although these early strikes were unsuccessful, they encouraged women to be more proactive and fight for their rights. Women such as Sojourner Truth and Elizabeth Cady Stanton realized that if they could work in factories and perform hard manual labor - without the assistance of their husbands or other men - they should be treated as their equals. Truth articulates in her “Ain’t I a Woman?” speech that she has ploughed and planted as much as a man. Women such as Truth should be perceived as equals to men if they can perform the same tasks as them in a labor dependent society. In the “Declaration of Sentiments”, Stanton proclaimed at the Women’s Rights Conventions in 1848 that women have been deprived of their right to be equal to men for far too long. These ideas spread rapidly in the United States due to the advanced printing presses and telegraphs produced. Even though women’s rights were not acquired until the 20th century, industry had been the ignition required for women to effectively begin advocating for their equality during the antebellum

period.
Although the Second Great Awakening emphasized individual responsibility and self-improvement with reforms regarding education and prisons, it had ultimately divided many groups into radical utopian communities with their own separate beliefs. On the other hand, industrialization was capable of uniting social reform groups that were established in dense urban cities with factories alongside the improved technologies that were developed. The advanced printing press and the telegraph enabled social reform groups like abolitionists and feminists to spread their ideas with the rest of the nation through newspapers and telegraph messages hastily and cheaply. These advancements allowed them to not only concentrate their efforts within their local communities, but reach a far wider audience. If industry did not exist during the antebellum period, conversations about these social reforms would not have been heard nationwide or even started in the first place. People would have been out in their local open fields talking about reviving Protestantism for the second time and working their farms. The imperative social reforms regarding temperance, slavery, and women’s suffrage were incited on the basis that industry provided the groups a means to impart their messages with the rest of the United States.