The Impact of Jacksonian Democracy on American Cultural & Intellectual Movements: Romanticism and the Second Great Awakening

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2022-04-11

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Southern New Hampshire University

Abstract

The existing historiography in connection with Jacksonian democracy has consisted of a decades-long debate in an attempt to answer the question: Was Jacksonian democracy truly democratic? Historians have approached the question through various lenses, such as political, economic, and social. However, the debate has not come to an agreed conclusion. There exists a gap in the current scholarship. The impact of Jacksonian democracy on American cultural movements such as Romanticism and the Second Great Awakening has not been fully explored or approached in the way done in this capstone. This project will address the topic through a revisionist approach, re-evaluating existing evidence primary and secondary sources, as well as presenting new evidence that previous historians have rarely used to establish the connection between Jacksonian democracy and the establishment of the ideologies of the aforementioned social movements. Some of the leading secondary sources used in support of the arguments presented are Mark R. Cheathem’s, Jacksonian and Antebellum Age: People and Perspectives and Daniel Walker Howe’s, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848, which discuss the intellectual movements occurring during the Jacksonian era but fail to create a direct link between them and Jacksonian policies. The primary sources include speeches and books, essays, and paintings made by Romanticists and the Second Great Awakening leaders. Lastly, this capstone will address works from historians such as Harry L. Watson, Liberty and Power: The Politics of Jacksonian America, who argue that Jacksonian democracy was not democratic to provide a well-rounded, objective, and reliable paper. This paper will add a new argument and contribute to the existing historiography by analyzing the evidence to prove that the political, economic, and social policies of Jacksonian democracy brought to fruition the ideologies of Romanticism and the Second Great Awakening. As a result, American cultural values shifted, creating a more egalitarian and democratic society.

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