Reference no: EM133648391

Assignment:

In this discussion, please reflect on relevant "Voices of Freedom" excerpts, especially those for Chapter featuring Sarah Bagley and Margaret McCarthy, together with other readings in Module 5. In your view, should the first half of the nineteenth century be remembered as a time of expanding opportunity and freedom, given opportunities created by the Market Revolution, or should it be remembered in different terms? Please make an argument about which aspects of the experience of these years seem most important to you and suggest what title you would give for the period 1816-1850. In doing so, it will be useful to reflect on the more specific questions below:

1. Why does Sarah Bagley compare the situation of female factory workers with slavery, and what aspirations seem uppermost in Margaret McCarthy's mind? Did all groups experience the Market Revolution in the same way?

2. How did the experience of the South diverge from that of the North and emerging West in these years? What is happening in the Southern economy? in the West?

3. How are cultural movements such as Transcendentalism and the Second Great Awakening informing how people think of the value of the individual and about rights?