A reform movement aims to bring an existing social or political system closer to a community’s ideal. It may have religious roots, or it may be rooted in secular concepts of social justice. It may be based on individual transformation, or it might involve small collectives that are self-sustaining. It is usually a nonviolent movement. Reform movements may also spawn reactionary movements, which seek to return society to its previous state.
Reform movements may also be inspired by demographic and economic changes. As America shifted from a mostly rural, small-town nation into an urban one after 1820, cities and towns often had the critical mass of people and resources that reform groups required. In addition, America’s growing economy enabled a middle class to emerge, many of whose members had both the financial comfort and leisure time to devote to promoting a cause such as abolitionism, temperance, or women’s rights.
Religious and secular ideas of perfection fueled the reform impulse as well. The shift from Calvinism’s doctrine of predestination to a more democratic teaching that emphasized humankind’s efforts to achieve salvation nourished ideas of perfectionism and millenarianism. On the secular side, a new faith in progress and the power of human reason also gave antebellum reformers optimism about change.
Although antebellum reforms had a variety of origins and trajectories, they most frequently rested on a network of voluntary associations, local groups loosely associated with a national organization and dedicated to a specific goal. This organizational structure lent a sense of coherence and unity to the movement, even though each association had its own distinct constituencies and agendas. As European observers such as Alexis de Tocqueville noted, a variety of reforms could be pursued through these associations.