STIRRINGS OF REFORM
The democratic upheaval in poli- tics exemplified by Jackson’s election was merely one phase of the long American quest for greater rights and opportunities for all citizens . Another was the beginning of la- bor organization, primarily among skilled and semiskilled workers . In 1835 labor forces in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, succeeded in reducing the old “dark-to-dark” workday to a 10-hour day . By 1860, the new work day had become law in sever- al of the states and was a generally accepted standard .
The spread of suffrage had al- ready led to a new concept of education . Clear-sighted statesmen everywhere understood that uni- versal suffrage required a tutored, literate electorate . Workingmen’s organizations demanded free, tax- supported schools open to all chil- dren . Gradually, in one state after another, legislation was enacted to provide for such free instruction . The leadership of Horace Mann in
Massachusetts was especially ef- fective . The public school system became common throughout the North . In other parts of the coun- try, however, the battle for public education continued for years .
Another influential social move- ment that emerged during this period was the opposition to the sale and use of alcohol, or the temper- ance movement . It stemmed from a variety of concerns and motives: religious beliefs, the effect of alco- hol on the work force, the violence and suffering women and children experienced at the hands of heavy drinkers . In 1826 Boston ministers organized the Society for the Pro- motion of Temperance . Seven years later, in Philadelphia, the society convened a national convention, which formed the American Tem- perance Union . The union called for the prohibition of all alcoholic bev- erages, and pressed state legislatures to ban their production and sale . Thirteen states had done so by 1855, although the laws were subsequently challenged in court . They survived only in northern New England, but between 1830 and 1860 the temper- ance movement reduced Americans’ per capita consumption of alcohol .
Other reformers addressed the problems of prisons and care for the insane . Efforts were made to turn prisons, which stressed punishment, into penitentiaries where the guilty would undergo rehabilitation . In Massachusetts, Dorothea Dix led a struggle to improve conditions for insane persons, who were kept con-
122
fined in wretched almshouses and prisons . After winning improve- ments in Massachusetts, she took her campaign to the South, where nine states established hospitals for the insane between 1845 and 1852 .