Answer:
A widespread movement to awaken sentiment in the US goal was to revive religious faith through impassioned preaching (Revivalism)
"the second Great Awakening had begun around 1800; now, it was in full swing.
In 1821, Charles Grandison Finney decided to leave his law practice and began preaching in churches in upstate New York. Despite a lack of formal training, he was ordained a Presbyterian minister, and was soon delivering sermons to audiences of hundreds, then thousands, from a range of Protestant denominations. Significantly, Finney called on people to change their lives, not to specifically align themselves with a particular creed. Others followed in his wake, as religious orthodoxy gave way to a more egalitarian spirit. In the region along the Erie Canal where Finney first preached, so many revivals took hold that the region was referred to as the Burned-Over District because of the fires of religious enthusiasm that swept the region.
As the Second Great Awakening grew in force in the 1820s and 1830s, a series of voluntary societies and interdenominational organization grew in influence. Many of these were associated with Lyman Beecher, who had embraced both the ideas of separation of church and state and that of moral reform. These societies represented a new ideal of cooperation that crossed denominational lines and were often predicated less upon social hierarchy than they were on the measure of grace experienced by their members. Women often found positions within these societies, carving out new meaning for their lives in a world where their choices were still severely limited. The underlying mission of all these societies was moral reform—the creation of a sober, God-fearing, American public. In the 1830s, Beecher became president of Lane Seminary in Cincinnati, helping to prepare future ministers as well as assisting in the creation of the public school system of Ohio.
For Finney and other preachers of the Second Great Awakening, experiencing God’s grace meant also changing one’s life on a daily basis. No ethical behavior was more important to him than opposing slavery; he had his closest lieutenant, Theodore Dwight Weld, become a strong stream in abolitionist sentiment that inspired many in the North to fight a war to end the sin of slavery. And just as God’s grace could remake the individual, so, reformers thought, could it remake the heart of society. The revivalism of the Second Great Awakening soon sparked a number of social reform movements, including temperance, the treatment of prisoners and of the mentally ill. Dorothea Dix was especially associated with the latter, presenting a report to Massachusetts in 1843 about the condition of “insane persons” in the state, leading to a system of state hospitals to replace earlier prisons. The American Peace Society, the American Sunday School Union, and countless other reforms to create a better, more humane, and more controlled society emerged during this period.
For some Americans, reform meant a coming out of society and creating a new place of community. Some of the utopian communities that characterized the period were religious in nature—others were secular. All, however, tended to address issues concerning gender, property, and traditional roles in new ways.
One of the more successful utopian experiments was the Shakers, who at their peak attracted tens of thousands of Americans in tightly organized communities. Founded by Ann Lee in the late 18th century, the Shakers believed that human sexuality was a sin, and that celibacy was the best way to lead a godly life. Shaker worship involved ritualized dances and singing, and Shaker society held male and female leaders in equal regard.
In upstate New York, the Oneida Community under the leadership of John Humphrey Noyes flourished for a time. Noyes believed it was possible to live a life without sin, a variant of the perfectionist doctrine, which characterized many of the reformist manifestations of the Second Great Awakening. Unlike the Shakers, who were celibate, Noyes and his followers believed in “complex marriage” in which monogamy was replaced with multiple sexual partners. The Oneida community lasted for decades, and today lives on through the silver business it founded. "
