American Reform Movements

From the Editor

The desire to reform and even to perfect society is as American as apple pie. From the Puritans’ determination to create “a city upon a hill,” to the utopian communities of the early nineteenth century, to the communes created by twentieth-century “hippies,” the goal has been to establish a new social order that will improve upon the status quo. Sometimes this reform impulse is an isolated one; sometimes it defines an entire era. Historians point to two such eras with roots in the nineteenth century: the age of reform in the 1830s and 1840s...More »