Great Awakening

==Second Great Awakening==
{{Main|Second Great Awakening}}

The Second Great Awakening (sometimes known simply as "the Great Awakening") was a religious revival that occurred in the United States beginning in the late eighteenth century and lasting until the middle of the nineteenth century. While it occurred in all parts of the United States, it was especially strong in the Northeast and the Midwest.{{sfn|Ahlstrom|1972|pp=415–454}} This awakening was unique in that it moved beyond the educated elite of New England to those who were less wealthy and less educated. The center of revivalism was the so-called [[Burned-over district]] in western New York. Named for its overabundance of hellfire-and-damnation preaching, the region produced dozens of new denominations, communal societies, and reform.{{sfn|Cross|1950}}

Among these dozens of new denominations were free black churches, run independently of existing congregations that were predominantly of white attendance. During the period between the American revolution and the 1850s, black involvement in largely white churches declined in great numbers, with participation becoming almost non-existent by the 1840s–1850s; some scholars argue that this was largely due to racial discrimination within the church.<ref name="Boles">{{Cite journal |title=Documents relating to African American experiences of white congregational churches in Massachusetts, 1773–1832 |first=Richard J. |last=Boles |journal=[[The New England Quarterly]] |volume=86 |issue=2 |year=2013 |pages=310–323 |jstor=43284993 |doi=10.1162/TNEQ_a_00280}}</ref> This discrimination came in the form of segregated seating and the forbiddance of African Americans from voting in church matters or holding leadership positions in many white churches.<ref name="Boles" /> Reverend Richard Allen, a central founder of the [[African Methodist Episcopal Church]], was quoted describing one such incident of racial discrimination in a predominantly white church in Philadelphia, in which fellow preacher and a former slave from Delaware, [[Absalom Jones]], was grabbed by a white church trustee in the midst of prayer and forcefully told to leave.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.loc.gov/resource/lcrbmrp.t1608/?sp=6| title=Image 6 of The Episcopal Church and the colored people: a statement of facts |website=[[Library of Congress]] |access-date=December 17, 2018}}</ref>

Closely related to the Second Great Awakening were other reform movements such as [[American Temperance movement|temperance]], [[Abolitionism in the United States|abolition]], and [[First-wave feminism|women's rights]]. The temperance movement encouraged people to abstain from consuming alcoholic drinks in order to preserve family order. The abolition movement fought to abolish slavery in the United States. The women's rights movement grew from female abolitionists who realized that they could fight for their own political rights, too. In addition to these causes, reforms touched nearly every aspect of daily life, such as restricting the use of tobacco and dietary and dress reforms. The abolition movement emerged in the North from the wider Second Great Awakening 1800–1840.{{sfn|McLoughlin|1978}}