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Humanitarianism in the Early Republic: The Moral Reformers of New York, 1776–1825

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2009

M. J. Heale
M. J. Heale
Affiliation:
University of Lancaster
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Extract

During the eighteenth century humanitarian sentiment grew in both Britain and Europe and by the end of the century, as Michael Kraus has shown, this benevolent spirit was crossing the Atlantic and was touching many Americans. Humanitarian activities of many kinds were undertaken in the early republic, presaging the great reforming crusades of the mid-nineteenth century, and the centres of these experiments were the large commercial cities of New York, Philadelphia and Boston, which possessed the necessary conditions of a conscientious middle-class, an adequate supply of funds, and social evils in need of attention.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 2 , Issue 2 , October 1968 , pp. 161 - 175
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1968

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References

page 161 note 1 Kraus, M., The Atlantic Civilization: Eighteenth-Century Origins (Ithaca, N.Y., 1949), ch. vi, pp. 123–58Google Scholar.

page 161 note 2 Quoted in Campbell, W. W., The Life and Writings of De Witt Clinton (New York, 1849), p. 314Google Scholar. For a general discussion of reactions to urban growth in this period see Glaab, C. N. and Brown, A. T., A History of Urban America (New York and London, 1967), ch. iii, pp. 53–81Google Scholar.

page 162 note 1 ‘Condensed history of the Society of the New York Hospital, compiled from its records, 1769–1921’ (anon. typescript in New York Public Library, dated 1921), pp. 2, 6.

page 162 note 2 Charter and Ordinances of the New-York Dispensary (New York, 1797), pp. 12–18, 30Google Scholar.

page 162 note 3 Constitution of the Assistance Society, for Relieving and Advising Sick and Poor Persons in the City of New-York (New York, 1809)Google Scholar; Constitution of the Brooklyn Assistant Society, for Relieving and Advising Sick and Poor Persons (Brooklyn, 1813)Google Scholar.

page 162 note 4 Constitution of the Ladies Society, Established in New-York, for the Relief of Poor Widows with Small Children (2nd edn., New York, 1800), p. 11Google Scholar.

page 162 note 5 A Sketch of the Origin and Progress of the Humane Society of the City of New- York … (New York, 1814)Google Scholar; ‘Constitution and Minutes of the New-York Manufacturing Society, 1789–1792’ (New York Historical Society, MS.); Plan of the Society for the Promotion of Industry; with the First Report of the Board of Managers (New York, 1816)Google Scholar; Constitution and By-Laws of the Magdalen Society of New-York (New York, 1812)Google Scholar; The Constitution, and First and Second Annual Reports of the Proceedings of the Association for the Relief of Respectable, Aged, Indigent Females (New York, 1815)Google Scholar. The Humane Society acquired its interest in the drowned in following the example of its namesake, the British Royal Humane Society; see Kraus, op. cit. pp. 138–9.

page 162 note 6 Society for the Prevention of Pauperism in the City of New-York (hereafter cited as the S.P.P.), Second Annual Report, 1819, pp. 14–16, 38–9Google Scholar; Fifth Annual Report. 1821, pp. 29–31Google Scholar.

page 163 note 1 For Eddy's own account see his An Account of the State Prison or Penitentiary House, in the City of New-York, ‘By One of the Inspectors of the Prison’ (New York, 1801)Google Scholar, a much wider-ranging work than its title suggests.

page 163 note 2 Sketch … of the Humane Society, pp. 3–4.

page 163 note 3 E.g. see Report on the Penitentiary System in the United States, Prepared under a Resolution of the Society for the Prevention of Pauperism in the City of New- York (New York, 1822), pp. 19, 49–56Google Scholar. A recent study of penal developments is Lewis, W. D., From Newgate to Dannemora: The Rise of the Penitentiary in New York, 1796–1848 (Ithaca, N.Y., 1965)Google Scholar.

page 163 note 4 New York Free School Society, Address of the Trustees ‘To the Public’, 18 May 1805, in Bourne, W. O., History of the Public School Society of the City of New York (New York, 1870), p. 7Google Scholar.

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page 163 note 7 The Constitution and Laws of the Orphan Asylum of the City of New-York (New York, 1808), p. 4Google Scholar.

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page 164 note 3 Pintard to his daughter, 28 November 1818, Letters from John Pintard to his Daughter, Eliza Noel Pintard Davidson, 1816–1833, ed. Barck, Dorothy C., vol. i, (New York 1940), pp. 155–6Google Scholar.

page 165 note 1 It is not possible to provide a detailed analysis of the backgrounds of humanitarians in this article, which is addressed mainly to their ideas and methods. However, they had strong links with the commercial circles of New York (Bethune and Murray were merchants, Eddy had been an insurance broker, Pintard held a similar post, and Allen was a sail-maker) and there was a strong Quaker contingent among them (e.g. Murray, Eddy, Griscom). The reports of the various societies carry full lists of officers. For more information about these figures see the entries on Griscom, Clarkson, Murray, Eddy and Pintard, in the Dictionary of American Biography and the following publications: [Bethune, D.], The Power of Faith: Exemplified in the Life and Writings of the Late Mrs Isabella Graham, of New York (New York, 1816)Google Scholar; Bethune, G. W., Memoirs of Mrs Joanna Bethune (New York, 1864)Google Scholar; Eddy, T., Memoir of the Late John Murray, Jun. (New York, 1819)Google Scholar; Griscom, J. H., Memoir of John Griscom, LL.D …. (New York, 1859)Google Scholar; Knapp, S. L., The Life of Thomas Eddy … (London, 1836)Google Scholar; [Scoville, J. A.], The Old Merchants of New York City (1st and 2nd series, New York, 1863)Google Scholar.

page 165 note 2 On the methodological difficulties in identifying ‘interlocking directories’, see Griffin, C. S., Their Brothers' Keepers: Moral Stewardship in the United States, 1800–1865 (New Brunswick, N.J., 1960), pp. 275–6Google Scholar.

page 166 note 1 These motives can be discerned in the many reports and other publications of humanitarian bodies and in the memoirs of reformers previously cited. Among those wishing to improve every aspect of city life were De Witt Clinton and John Pintard. See Bobbé, Dorothie, De Witt Clinton (New York, 1933)Google Scholar, passim, and Letters from John Pintard to his Daughter, ed. Barck, ‘Introduction’ and passim. New York had its boosters like other cities.

page 166 note 2 First Annual Report, 1819, p. 21Google Scholar.

page 166 note 3 Ibid. p. 14.

page 166 note 4 ‘The New York Society for the Suppression of Vice and Immorality’ (MS. in John Jay Papers, box 4, New York Historical Society).

page 167 note 1 [Eddy, ], Account of the State Prison, pp. 59–60Google Scholar; A Report of a Committee of the Humane Society, Appointed to Inquire into the Number of Tavern Licenses … (New York, 1810), p. 10Google Scholar; S.P.P., Second Annual Report, 1819, pp. 9–11Google Scholar; Fourth Annual Report, 1821, p. 11Google Scholar; Fifth Annual Report, 1821 pp. 22, 35–6Google Scholar.

page 167 note 2 S.P.P., Second Annual Report, 1819, pp. 7–8Google Scholar; ‘The memoirs of Stephen Allen (1757–1852)’, ed. J. C. Travis (typescript dated 1927 in New York Public Library), pp 91–2.

page 167 note 3 [Eddy], op. cit. p. 61; ‘Memoirs of Allen’, ed. Travis, p. 103; S.P.P., First Annual Report, 1818, pp. 15–16Google Scholar; Second Annual Report, 1819, p. 12Google Scholar; Fourth Annual Report, 1821, pp. 23–4Google Scholar.

page 167 note 4 S.P.P., Second Annual Report, 1819, p. 12Google Scholar.

page 168 note 1 New York Bible Society, Annual Report (1810)Google Scholar; American Bible Society, Third Report (1819), pp. 31–2Google Scholar.

page 168 note 2 Beecher, L., A Reformation of Morals Practicable and Indispensable (2nd edn., Utica, N.Y., 1813), p. 17Google Scholar.

page 168 note 3 For examples of Moral Societies see Abt, H. E., Ithaca (Ithaca, N.Y., 1926), pp. 47–8Google Scholar; Thompson, B. F., History of Long Island from its Discovery and Settlement to the Present Time (3rd edn., Port Washington, L.I., 1962), vol. ii, 25–6Google Scholar.

page 168 note 4 A recent discussion on the connexions between the revivals and fears of a decline in religion and morality is found in Miller, Perry, The Life of the Mind in America: From the Revolution to the Civil War (London, 1966), pp. 3–9Google Scholar.

page 168 note 5 Constitution of the Ladies Society, pp. 7–9; The By-Laws and Regulations of the Society … (New York, 1813), pp. 6–8Google Scholar.

page 169 note 1 A Brief Account of the New-York Hospital (New York, 1804), pp. 26, 35Google Scholar; Plan of the Society for the Promotion of Industry, pp. 5–6, 8.

page 169 note 2 Vanderbilt, J. Jun, An Address Delivered in the New-York Free School, on the 27th day of December, 1809 (New York, 1810), p. 8Google Scholar.

page 169 note 3 Address of the Trustees ‘To the Public’, 18 May 1805, in Bourne, op. cit. p. 7.

page 169 note 4 Memorial to Legislature, 25 Feb. 1805, in ibid. p. 4.

page 170 note 1 ‘A sketch of the New York Free School’, printed as preface to Lancaster, J., Improvements in Education, As It Respects the Industrious Classes of the Community … (3rd edn., New York, 1807), p. xxxGoogle Scholar. See also Manual of the Lancastrian System, of Teaching, Writing, Arithmetic, and Needle-work, as Practised in the Schools of the Free School Society, of New-York (New York 1820)Google Scholar.

page 170 note 2 New York Free School Society, Tenth Annual Report of the Trustees (1815), pp. 1–2Google Scholar; Eighteenth Annual Report of the Trustees (1823), pp. 1–2Google Scholar.

page 170 note 3 [Eddy, ], Account of the State Prison, p. 32Google Scholar. For his work in the prison see ibid. pp. 31–5 53–4, 65–7.

page 171 note 1 Constitution of the Assistance Society, p. 15.

page 171 note 2 [Eddy], op. cit. p. 20.

page 171 note 3 Ibid. p. 51.

page 171 note 4 This view of the fundamental innocence of man reflects the influence of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment and of the new liberal developments in American Protestantism. Not everyone shared it. Lyman Beecher, for example, believed that man was by nature wicked, but could be improved through the ‘influence of moral restraint’ (Beecher, op. cit. pp. 15–16). Both attitudes provided a justification for reforming measures.

page 172 note 1 S.P.P., First Annual Report, 1818, pp. 12, 16–17Google Scholar; Fifth Annual Report, 1821, pp. 29–33Google Scholar.

page 172 note 2 Report on the Penitentiary System in the U.S., pp. 36, 50–6; Report from the Committee appointed to visit the State Prisons [Albany, 1825]Google Scholar, passim but especially pp. 14–15, 34–46.

page 172 note 3 Schneider, D. M., The History of Public Welfare in New York State, 1609–1866 (Chicago, 1938), pp. 227–9, 246Google Scholar; Powers, G., A Brief Account of the Construction, Management, and Discipline Etc. etc., of the New York State Prison at Auburn (Auburn, N.Y., 1826), pp. 4–38Google Scholar. Owen, David, English Philanthropy, 1660–1960 (Cambridge, Mass., 1965), pp. 97–9Google Scholar, finds that English humanitarians became increasingly austere in the late eighteenth century; demands for reform in the English poor laws of course mounted in the 1820s. The Americans were undoubtedly influenced by British ideas: the humanitarian crosscurrents between the two were considerable, as has been shown by Kraus, op. cit., ch. vi, and Thistlethwaite, F., The Anglo-American Connection in the Early Nineteenth Century (Philadelphia, 1959), chs. iii–vGoogle Scholar.

page 172 note 4 ‘Memorial of the Female Association of New-York, praying for pecuniary aid’, Documents of the Assembly of the State of New York, vol. iii (1830), no. 266, p. 2Google Scholar. See also The Constitution and By-Laws of the Infant School Society of the City of New- York (New York, 1828)Google Scholar, passim.

page 173 note 1 Rules and Regulations for the Government of the House of Refuge (New York, 1825)Google Scholar, passim, but especially pp. 3, 12–13, 16–17, 19.

page 173 note 2 S.P.P., Second Annual Report, 1819, pp. 14–15Google Scholar; see also the society's Documents Relative to Savings Banks, Intemperance, and Lotteries (New York, 1819), pp. 3–16Google Scholar.

page 174 note 1 A Report of a Committee of the Humane Society …, p. 5.

page 174 note 2 The reformers were certainly familiar with the works of their British predecessors and contemporaries. The library of the Society for the Prevention of Pauperism contained many books and tracts of British origin, including publications by John Howard, Jeremy Bentham, Patrick Colquhoun and Adam Smith: S.P.P., Second Annual Report, 1819, appendix, pp. 83–91Google Scholar.

page 175 note 1 The public authorities, of course, were also very much involved in several of these developments. Often a private society founded and managed an institution, such as the House of Refuge or the New York Hospital, and persuaded the state and city governments to help finance it. Public bodies rarely initiated reform: the voluntary efforts of the humanitarians described here were more important in this respect. For the role of the city and state authorities in welfare services see Schneider, D. M., The History of Public Welfare in New York State, 1609–1866 (Chicago, 1938), passimGoogle Scholar.