Alexis de Tocqueville, a French
traveler who wrote a classic report on American society,
Democracy in America (1835), wrote,
"in my view, more deserves attention than the intellectual and moral associations in
America." He observed that "Americans of all ages, all stations of life and all
dispositions are forever forming associations. There are not only commercial and
industrial associations in which all take part, but others of a thousand different types -
religious, moral, serious, futile, very general and very limited, very large and very
minute."
What de Tocqueville encountered during his travels to the
United States in the 1830s was the keen desire of many American citizens to come together to
eradicate evil from 19th-century life and perpetuate the evangelical and liberal belief in
the perfectibility of humankind. Mindful of their right to act on behalf of their beliefs,
citizens from throughout the nation came together to right perceived wrongs and crusade on
behalf of their causes, including observance of the Sabbath, crime and punishment, hours
and conditions of work, poverty, care of the handicapped, temperance, women's rights, the
abolition of slavery, and education, to name a few.
The reform efforts of the 1830s and 1840s are evidence of
the belief held by many citizens that just as society is the creation of the people, so the improvement of society rests with the people. Ralph Waldo Emerson, speaking
fondly of the reformers and reforms, may have summed it up best when he asked, "What
is man made for, but to be a Reformer, a Remaker of what man has made?"
To find additional documents from
American Memory on these topics, use
such key words as women's rights, women suffrage, educational reform
or school reform, and anti-slavery movement or abolition.
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