Restless Visionaries : The Social Roots of Antebellum Reform in Alabama and Michigan

562 pages with index. In the decades before the Civil War, numerous Americans lent their enthusiasm to various social reform movements. In this ground-breaking work, John Quist explores reform movements in two individual counties--one in the Old Northwest, the other in the Deep South--to understand better how deeply and extensively the climate of reform penetrated American life. In both Tuscaloosa County, Alabama, and Washtensaw County, Michigan, Quist investigates those causes that eventually were carried forward by large voluntary associations: namely, evangelical benevolence, temperance, the colonization of blacks to Africa, and the abolition of slavery. He tracks the changes and continuities that occurred in the religious, social, and political constituencies of reform, and notes the development of the means and messages of the reformers.Quest finds a striking similarity in northern and southern reform campaigns. He maintains that the white Tuscaloosans' desire to protedct slavery did not temper their enthusiasm for other, "less radical" reform movements. Indeed, in their quest for temperance and in their commitment to the evangelical societies of the benevolent empire these southern reformers were nearly as active, employed many of the same techniques, and sought many of the same goals as their northern counterparts.…