Humanitarianism is not an actual literary movement with particular literary characteristics, like American Romanticism or Transcendentalism; rather, it’s a theme that emerged and strengthened in the American experience as it moved toward mid-nineteenth century.  According to Wikipedia, humanitarianism is “an active belief in the value of human life, whereby humans practice benevolent treatment and provide assistance to other humans, in order to improve the conditions of humanity for moral, altruistic and logical reasons.” ^[1]

The American democratic experiment took root and flourished in the early 19th century. By the time Andrew Jackson was elected president in 1828 almost all states had lifted property restrictions on voting rights, thus opening elections to all adult, white men. Jacksonian Democracy signaled an overturning of long-standing assumptions of deference to an educated elite in politics. Religion became more democratized as well, with the 1st Amendment to the Constitution (1791) guaranteeing freedom of speech and religion, thus setting the scene for religious institutions to take on some of the features of the marketplace, as individuals now could decide on their own with which church to associate. In the Second Great Awakening, a period of religious fervor, the clergy became more democratized, as many barely literate men (and occasionally women), including both African Americans and American Indians, became church leaders and, sometimes, licensed ministers. Within this expanding democracy, experiences of the disenfranchised became more obvious.

Numerous social reform movements paralleled the democratic reforms of the Jacksonian era, fueled by the middle class’ increase in leisure time and income as well as by the evangelical energies of the second Great Awakening. Like the first one, the second Great Awakening was another surge in evangelical Protestant piety starting around the 1820s. As evangelicalism emphasized public testimony of spiritual experience as a way of spreading that experience, there was a natural synergy between the reformation of souls and the reformation of society which directed itself into numerous reform movements for a variety of social problems.

A humanitarian focus appears in American literature during many time periods – in Native American stories, in the writings of Sewell, Jefferson, Freneau, Sedgwick, Fuller, and more. But it intensified in the 1800s as the U.S. moved toward fuller democratization. The Romantic and Transcendental focus on the importance of the individual was akin with literature with humanitarian themes, even though much of humanitarian literature of this time period cannot be classified as either Romantic or Transcendental. According to americanliterature.com, “Transcendentalists believe that the divine spirit resides within all of us, they embrace intuition rather than rationality, and believe in the ‘inherent goodness of both people and nature.’ Equality for all humanity and nature manifested into supporting abolitionism, feminism, communal and sustainable living.” ^[2]  Humanitarian themes intensified as America grew in the first half of the 19th century, especially in light of slavery, women’s rights, and factory workers’ experiences.

Although slavery was progressively becoming illegal in different states, it was still legal and practiced in many states until the 13th Amendment was passed in 1865.  Motivated by a mix of the desire to make the Revolutionary ideal of freedom for all a reality and the belief, originating in evangelical theology, that people must be free to choose between right and wrong in order to achieve salvation, Northern churches took up the cause of immediate emancipation of slaves and asserted that message in numerous pulpits, lecture halls, and newspapers. Slave narratives, such as those of Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs, depicted common experiences of slaves, aimed to teach a lesson about the evils of slavery, and hoped to have real world results.

The abolitionist movement also overlapped the movement for reforming women’s rights. American women endured many inequalities in the 19th century. They could not vote, attend professional schools and most higher education, attend public conventions, or own property. The 1848 Seneca Falls Convention produced a female bill of rights modeled along the lines of the Constitutional one. Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Stowe, the blockbuster novel of the nineteenth century, can be seen as the literary nexus of religious reform, abolition, and women’s rights. Arguing that women had a special role in reforming the spirituality of her family and her society, Stowe urged her readers to reject slavery, as it was an impediment to the spiritual salvation of the slaves, the slaveholders, and the nation that tolerated it.

The move from an agrarian to a more industrialized society created a population of factory workers, many of whom had to endure harsh working conditions.Literary authors of the antebellum period sometimes commented on the ongoing industrialization of the era in positive terms, but more often they saw it as epitomizing technology’s danger of mechanizing humanity. Some writers associated industrialization with the erasure of individual difference, the mass production of people. Other writers emphasized industrialization’s creation and exploitation of a working class trapped by economic conditions. These works dealt with the increasing concern about working-class degradation due to industrialization.

The following two videos offer information about temperance, women’s rights, and the abolitionist movement. Although they focus on key issues and historic figures as opposed to literature, they provide interesting social context for reading antebellum literature with humanitarian themes.

For historical and cultural context, you may also want to review the videos from Kahn Academy, listed on the Introduction: “American” Literature page.