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The Second Great Awakening Facts & Worksheets

The Second Great Awakening was a 19th-century Christian revivalist movement in the US characterized by enthusiastic preachers and rejuvenation in people’s faith.

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The Second Great Awakening was a 19th-century Christian revivalist movement characterized by enthusiastic preachers gathering huge camp meetings to persuade and rejuvenate people’s faith in religion.

Keep reading for the comprehensive on site fact file detailing the Second Great Awakening or download our entire worksheet bundle to teach in the home or classroom environment.

Facts & Information

Background

  • The Second Great Awakening in the United States occurred between 1790 and 1840. It was a protestant religious revival or the restart of a church congregation’s existence. 
  • Before the Second Great Awakening was the First Great Awakening that happened between 1730-1755. It developed at a time when secular reason was being emphasized and religious enthusiasm had become banal.
  • Christian leaders traveled widely, preaching the gospel, stressing salvation from sin, and encouraging Christian zeal. As a result, there was a revival of religious devotion. Various historians think the Great Awakening left an indelible mark on many Christian faiths as well as American culture as a whole.
  • The two Great Awakenings were the reactions of the church to the growing intellectual milieu of the people brought by the Enlightenment Era and Industrial Revolution. In addition, people were more concerned about the westward expansion of American territories after the revolutionary war.
  • The Second Great Awakening led to various reforms through religious teachings and revival meetings. It was an essential feature of the movement that attracted a lot of new Protestant converts.
  • By the late 1700s, many individuals in the United States were no longer attending church services regularly. Others had grown too preoccupied with making a living to devote time to God. Some people felt that God was unimportant in everyday life.  Many religious faiths sponsored religious revivals as a consequence of diminishing religious convictions. These revivals stressed humanity’s reliance on God.
  • People were urged to return to God as a result of the revivals. Many individuals in the United States were persuaded to devote their lives more actively to God and to live good lives. Church attendance surged throughout the first part of the nineteenth century. 
  • The Second Great Awakening sparked a determination to improve the United States. The revival movement and its messages significantly impacted the temperance and abolitionist movements in the United States. Influenced by religious faith, political and social reform movements were also formed. Some are the Women’s Rights Movement and the Abolitionist Movement.
  • Many people in the United States who lived near the border had little contact with their neighbors. The revivals allowed these people to hear God’s word and for rural families to communicate and trade with one another. The Second Great Awakening also saw the emergence of women and African-Americans in leadership positions in the church.
  • The Second Great Awakening benefitted several religious organizations. Baptists and Methodists attracted the most converts, increasing their numbers across the country, especially in Ohio. The revivals also led to the formation of new religious groupings. These organizations were dissatisfied with the existing faiths and developed their own teachings. Mormons were one of these groups.
  • The Second Great Awakening happened in multiple events and across several religions. The Methodists had a well-organized structure that relied on traveling pastors known as circuit riders to seek out individuals in distant frontier areas. The circuit riders were ordinary individuals, which aided them in establishing relationships with the frontier families they intended to convert.

Spread of Revivals

  • The majority of religious revivals took the form of camp gatherings. Adherents and interested persons would spend several days listening to various religious leaders’ messages of God. While these meetings were frequently passionate, they did not devolve into hysterical assemblages as many previous revivals had. They also functioned as social meeting places.
  • Camp meetings spread across the Northern and Southern states of America but had different interpretations. The Northern states developed the ideas of socialist reform, equality, and volunteerism, which later ignited the Abolitionist Movement. In contrast, the Southern white preachers began to convince the people that Biblical scriptures supported slavery.
  • In 1776, evangelist, Charles Finney, called the western part of New York the “burnt-over district” because everyone had converted to Christianity.
  • The Second Great Awakening started in New England, Kentucky, New York, and Tennessee in 1800. Huge religious camp meetings were organized with latent functions of trading and social gathering.
  • The first large Christian revivalist camp meeting was held in Kentucky during the presidency of John Adams.
  • Many great religious conventions happened during the Second Great Awakening. Still, Cane Ridge Camp was the largest of them all, with well over 20,000 people in attendance and lasting a whole week. The Cane Ridge Camp conference was prompted by Presbyterian/Christian preacher Barton Warren Stone, who observed a minor religious revival in Western Kentucky and intended to incite a similar revival at his Cane Ridge, Kentucky, church.
  • In 1816, the American Bible Society was established along with religious movements such as the Mormons (1830), Adventists (1832), and Jehovah’s Witnesses (1870). The members of the Methodist and Baptist Church overgrew after the awakening.
  • On January 1, 1802, a religious revival occurred at Yale University, New Heaven, Connecticut with approximately two hundred thirty attendees.
  • On April 9, 1816, Richard Allen established the African Methodist Episcopal Church. It was the first African American denomination to be created in the United States, resulting from the discrimination and mistreatment of African-Americans.
  • The American Temperance Society was founded on February 13, 1826, to prohibit the sale of alcoholic beverages. Many Americans thought drinking was sinful and alcohol was a threat to the nation’s progress in the early 1800s. These views resulted in widespread support for temperance or avoiding drinking alcohol.
  • In 1830, Joseph Smith set up the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Holy people, famously known as Mormonism.
  • Emerson’s “Self-Reliance” was printed and distributed on January 1, 1841. It is an article that promotes the concept that people should resist conformity and follow their intuition. “Self-Reliance” was crucial in launching the Transcendentalist movement.
  • The American Missionary Association was formed on September 3, 1846. It was an abolitionist organization created by several Methodist and Presbyterian leaders that were responsible for the formation of over 100 anti-slavery Congregational churches across the Midwest. Their mission was to educate African-Americans while advocating for racial equality and Christian ideals.

Subgroups

Adventist

  • Adventism is a Protestant Christian denomination that believes in Jesus Christ’s Second Coming. During the Second Great Awakening in the United States in the 1830s, Baptist preacher William Miller publicly proclaimed his opinion that the Second Coming would arrive between 1843 and 1844. Millerites were those who followed him. Following the Great Disappointment, the Millerite movement split apart and was perpetuated by a variety of sects with differing teachings. These organizations, all sprung from a similar Millerite ancestor, were known as the Adventist movement.

Holiness Movement

  • The Holiness Movement dominated nineteenth-century American Protestantism. Its primary goal was to encourage the sanctification of Christian Christians by a specific second act of grace following conversion. The Holiness Movement also saw social activity as an active manifestation of personal holiness. The Holiness Movement focused on a distinct second work of grace, which extended across American Protestantism.

Restoration Movement

  • Around 1800, Protestants aspired to unify Christians in the form of the ancient New Testament church, which inspired the Restoration Movement. Restorationism is an indigenous American religious movement that rejects creeds and declares “no creed but Christ” with the goal of bringing all Christians into line with the New Testament pattern depicted in Acts.

Society and Culture

  • Across the western frontier, the Second Great Awakening established a religious and educational infrastructure that included missionary groups, newspapers, and institutions. Attempts to apply Christian teaching to the solutions of societal issues foreshadowed the late-nineteenth-century Social Gospel. The Female Missionary Society and the Maternal Association were highly organized and financially sophisticated women’s groups that were responsible for many of the New York frontier’s evangelical converts.

Political Implications

  • From 1840 through 1865, revivals and perfectionist ideals of bettering people and society persisted across all major religions, particularly in metropolitan regions. Slavery, avarice, and poverty were often openly addressed by evangelists, setting the framework for subsequent reform movements. The desire to change the world was channeled into mainstream political activism. Temperance activists, antislavery activists, and other reformers attempted to incorporate their views into national politics.
  • Some of the famous people during the Second Great Awakening were Charles Finney (the leading revivalist), Lyman Beecher (a New England Clergyman), Joseph Smith (president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), and Harry Hosier (a slave turned preacher).

The Second Great Awakening Worksheets

This bundle contains 11 ready-to-use Second Great Awakening Worksheets that are perfect for students who want to learn more about The Second Great Awakening which was a 19th-century Christian revivalist movement which was characterized by enthusiastic preachers gathering huge camp meetings to persuade and rejuvenate people’s faith in religion.

Download includes the following worksheets:

  • The Second Great Awakening Facts
  • The Revival Word Search
  • Color Your Heart
  • Religious Denominations
  • Slavery from North to South
  • The Preachers
  • Role of Women
  • Religion and Politics
  • Cause and Effect
  • The Revival Story
  • Religions Today

Frequently Asked Questions

What was the Second Great Awakening?

The Second Great Awakening  States took place between the year 1790-1840. It was a protestant religious revival or the restart of a church congregation’s existence. The Second Great Awakening led to various reforms through religious teachings and revival meetings. It was an essential feature of the movement that attracted a lot of new Protestant converts.

Why was there an Awakening in the first place?

Before the Second Great Awakening was the First Great Awakening that happened between t730 and 1755. It developed at a time when secular reason was being emphasized and religious enthusiasm had become banal. The two Great Awakenings were the reactions of the church to the growing intellectual milieu of the people brought by the Enlightenment era and Industrial Revolution. In addition, people were more concerned about the westward expansion of American territories after the revolutionary war.

Why did the Second Great Awakening occur?

The Second Great Awakening led to various reforms through religious teachings and revival meetings. It was an essential feature of the movement that attracted a lot of new Protestant converts. By the late 1700s, many individuals in the United States were no longer attending church services on a regular basis. Others had grown too preoccupied with making a living to devote time to God. Some people felt that God was unimportant in everyday life.  Many religious faiths sponsored religious revivals as a consequence of diminishing religious convictions. These revivals stressed humanity’s reliance on God.

What was the effect of the Second Great Awakening?

The Second Great Awakening benefitted several religious organizations. Baptists and Methodists attracted the most converts, increasing their numbers across the country, especially in Ohio. The revivals also led to the formation of new religious groupings. These organizations were dissatisfied with the existing faiths and developed their own teachings. Mormons were one of these groups. It also sparked a determination to improve the United States. The revival movement and its messages had a significant impact on the temperance and abolitionist movements in the United States. Influenced by religious faith, political and social reform movements were also formed. Some are the Women’s Rights Movement and the Abolitionist Movement.

How did the revival spread across the United States?

The majority of religious revivals took the form of camp gatherings. Adherents and interested persons would spend several days listening to various religious leaders’ messages of God. While these meetings were frequently passionate, they did not devolve into hysterical assemblages as many previous revivals had. They also functioned as social meeting places. Camp meetings spread across the Northern and Southern states of America but had different interpretations.

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