Those movements which had their inspiration in a genuine
humanitarianism achieved great good. Now for the first time the
blind, the deaf, the dumb, and the insane were made the object of
social solicitude and communal care. The criminal, too, and the
jail in which he was confined remained no longer utterly
neglected. Men of the debtor class were freed from that medieval
barbarism which gave the creditor the right to levy on the person
of his debtor. Even the public schools were dragged out of their
lethargy. When Horace Mann was appointed secretary of the newly
created Massachusetts Board of Education in 1837, a new day
dawned for American public schools.
While these and other substantial improvements were under way,
the charlatan and the faddist were not without their
opportunities or their votaries. Spirit rappings beguiled or awed
the villagers; thousands of religious zealots in 1844 abandoned
their vocations and, drawing on white robes, awaited expectantly
the second coming of Christ; every cult from free love to
celibate austerity found zealous followers; the "new woman"
declared her independence in short hair and bloomers; people
sought social salvation in new health codes, in vegetarian
boarding-houses, and in physical culture clubs; and some pursued
the way to perfection through sensual religious exercises.
In this seething milieu, this medley of practical humanitarianism
and social fantasies, the labor movement was revived.
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