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Charles Finney
Charles Grandison Finney was also the most famous revivalist of the Second Great Awakening. He did not merely lead revivals; he actively marketed, promoted and packaged them. Unlike other ministers who waited for the Spirit to deliver the right moment, Finney argued that men and women of faith had to take the initiative and act: "More than five thousand millions have gone down to hell, while the church has been dreaming, and waiting for God to save them without the use of means." -
Sojourner Truth
she joined the Northampton Association of Education and Industry in Northampton, Massachusetts. Founded by abolitionists, the organization supported a broad reform agenda including women's rights and pacifism. Members lived together on 500 acres as a self-sufficient community. Truth met a number of leading abolitionists at Northampton, including William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass and David Ruggles. Sojourner Truth's career as an activist and reformer was just beginning. -
Henry David Thoreau
Pencil leads were made by filling a groove in a piece of wood with a mixture of ground graphite and some kind of binder. Henry David Thoreau worked on the problem of making a better pencil out of inferior graphite. Thoreau's clay-mixed graphite wasn't entirely original. The Germans had used something like it a few years earlier. It's not clear whether Thoreau had any inkling of the German process. But what is clear is that he transcended it. He developed a new grinding mill. He developed all so -
Cyrus Mccocirmick
McCormick teamed with and drew on the work of many other people in developing the reaper, including his father and one of his slaves. Ironically, this device developed, in part, by a slave that went on not just to enrich McCormick, but to liberate free farm workers from hours of back-breaking labor. -
William Lloyd Garrison
He helped organize the New England Anti-Slavery Society, and, the following year, the American Anti-Slavery Society. These were the first organizations dedicated to promoting immediate emancipation. Garrison was unyeilding and steadfast in his beliefs. He believed that the the Anti-Slavery Society should not align itself with any political party. He believed that women should be allowed to participate in the Anti-Slavery Society. He believed that the U.S. Constitution was a pro-slavery documen -
Samuel Morse
Though not part of the original design, the invention came to include a dot-and-dash code that used different numbers to represent the letters of the alphabet. In time, this newly invented code would become known as "Morse Code."
With the aid of some partners, Samuel F.B. Morse applied for a patent for his new invention and went to work building a prototype. Not long after, Morse was transmitting ten words per minute with the device at a New York exhibition. -
John Deere
Deere figured out a way to make things easier for western farmers by constructing a plow that was made of polished steel. Deere designed his first steel plow by taking an old steel saw blade and polishing it up. -
Frederick Douglas
Douglass boarded a train to Havre de Grace, Maryland. Anna Murray had provided him with some of her savings and a sailor's uniform. He carried identification papers obtained from a free black seaman. Douglass made his way to the safe house of abolitionist David Ruggles in New York in less than 24 hours.
Douglass was asked to tell his story at abolitionist meetings, after which he became a regular anti-slavery lecturer. William Lloyd Garrison was impressed with Douglass’ strength and rhetorical. -
Horace Mann
in 1838, he was crucial to the actual establishment of the first Normal Schools in Massachusetts. Mann knew that the quality of rural schools had to be raised, and that teaching was the key to that improvement. He also recognized that the corps of teachers for the new Common Schools were most likely to be women, and he argued forcefully for the recruitment of women into the ranks of teachers, often through the Normal Schools. These developments were all part of Mann's driving determination to cr -
Dorothea Dix
She began teaching Sunday school at the East Cambridge Jail, a women’s prison. She discovered the appalling treatment of the prisoners, particularly those with mental illnesses, whose living quarters had no heat. She immediately went to court and secured an order to provide heat for the prisoners, along with other improvements. She began traveling around the state to research the conditions in prisons and poorhouses, and ultimately crafted a document that was presented to the Massachusetts legis -
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Elizabeth Cady Stanton held the famous Seneca Falls Convention in July 1848. At this meeting, the attendees drew up its “Declaration of Sentiments” and took the lead in proposing that women be granted the right to vote. She continued to write and lecture on women's rights and other reforms of the day. After meeting Susan B Anthony in the early 1850s, she was one of the leaders in promoting women's rights in general and the right to vote in particular. -
Isaac Singer
His design also included a presser foot, enabling an unprecedented speed of 900 stitches per minute. Since the Singer sewing machine implemented some of the basic principles of inventor Elias Howe's sewing machine, when Singer applied for a patent, Howe sued him for patent infringement, and won. -
Daniel Webster
Webster earned a reputation as one of the greatest ever to hold the office. His most notable achievement was the negotiation of the Webster-Ashburton Treaty, which settled a long-standing dispute over the Maine and New Brunswick boundary and ended a threat of war between Great Britain and the United States. Webster earned a reputation as one of the greatest ever to hold the office. His most notable achievement was the negotiation of the Webster-Ashburton Treaty, which settled a long-standing. -
Susan B Anthony
Anthony was inspired to fight for women’s rights while campaigning against alcohol. She denied a chance to speak at a temperance convention because she was a woman. Anthony later realized that no one would take women in politics seriously unless they had the right to vote. Anthony founded the National Woman. Suffrage Association in 1869. Around this time, the two created and produced The Revolution, a weekly publication that lobbied for women’s rights.
