APUSH Unit 4: The Transformation of Society and Borders (1800–1848)

Second Great Awakening

A series of religious revivals starting in 1801, emphasizing free will and individual responsibility for salvation.

Free Will

The belief that individuals have the ability to choose their own salvation.

Burnt-Over District

A region in Western New York known for frequent religious revivals.

Charles Grandison Finney

The father of modern revivalism who created the 'anxious bench' for repentant sinners.

Democratization of Religion

The empowerment of individuals to interpret scripture, reflecting the rise of Jacksonian Democracy.

Perfectionism

The belief that humans can achieve moral perfection.

Age of Reform

A movement inspired by the Second Great Awakening aimed at improving society.

Temperance Movement

A reform movement focused on reducing alcohol consumption.

Maine Law

The first law to prohibit the manufacture and sale of liquor, enacted in 1851.

Horace Mann

Known as the 'Father of American Education,' he advocated for compulsory school attendance and teacher training.

Dorothea Dix

A schoolteacher and reformer who advocated for mental health care and institutional reforms.

Penitentiaries

Prisons aimed at rehabilitating criminals rather than simply punishing them.

Abolitionism

The movement to end slavery.

William Lloyd Garrison

An abolitionist who published The Liberator and called for immediate emancipation of slaves.

Frederick Douglass

A former enslaved person and prominent abolitionist orator who published The North Star.

Nat Turner’s Rebellion

A violent slave uprising in 1831 that led to stricter slave codes in the South.

Cult of Domesticity

The prevailing value system that defined women's roles in the home.

Seneca Falls Convention

The first women's rights convention in U.S. history, held in 1848.

Declaration of Sentiments

Document from the Seneca Falls Convention that declared 'all men and women are created equal.'

Transcendentalism

A philosophical and literary movement that emphasized the divinity of nature and individualism.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

A transcendentalist who urged Americans to trust their instincts.

Henry David Thoreau

A transcendentalist known for his essay Civil Disobedience advocating for resistance to unjust laws.

Manifest Destiny

The belief that the U.S. was destined to expand across North America.

Lone Star Republic

Texas' name after it won independence from Mexico in 1836.

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

The 1848 treaty that ended the Mexican-American War and ceded Mexican territories to the U.S.

Wilmot Proviso

A proposal to prohibit slavery in any territory acquired from Mexico.

Opposition to Expansion

The concern among some groups, particularly Whigs, that expansion was aimed at extending slave power.