USA > Connecticut > Tercentenary pamphlet series, v. 1 Connecticut and the British Government > Part 35
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Since a small percentage of the total population was directly concerned with manufacturing pursuits there did not develop, during the first half of the century, a laboring class which possessed interests distinct from those held by the community in general, and this absence of a labor party both in business and in politics may have retarded the introduction of liberal legislation se- cured by such parties in other states, but statutes limiting hours of work, abolishing imprisonment for debt, and encouraging improvements in education-the main ob- jects sought by other societies of mechanics in New England-were obtained in Connecticut without special pleading. The state, furthermore, was relatively free from labor quarrels of the kind that frequently distress all manufacturing communities at the present day. Only one notable controversy disturbed the peace of early times. In 1833, about seventy weavers employed by the
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Thompsonville Carpet Company asked for an increase in the rate of wages granted them for piecework, and when unable to come to terms with the company they were locked out of the plant. Most of the workers were obliged to return to their jobs within a month, as they had few funds to tide them over a long period of unemployment and were threatened with eviction from the company- controlled boarding houses where most of them lived. The results of the contest were inconclusive, however, the company claiming a victory because the men returned to work at the old rates, and the workers claiming success on another score, since a suit brought against them for conspiracy to injure the employer's profits, was decided by the courts in favor of the defendants. The controversy showed that labor organizations had made little headway in the state, a result which was in no small degree due to the fact that local employers were reasonable and hu- mane men who took conscientious thought for the wel- fare of their workers.
Legislation benefiting the workingmen as a group was enacted from time to time by the general assembly in response to an enlightened sentiment prevailing in the community. The liberal advancement, it must be ad- mitted, came about slowly. In 1822, Governor Wolcott called attention to the need for a mechanics' lien law, since statutes then in force regulating court procedure in suits for the recovery of wages often worked to the ad- vantage of the defendant. Whenever a carpenter or a mason was obliged to bring suit for sums due him on construc- tion or repair work, he had to post a bond sufficient to cover the court expenses should the case go against him; hence Wolcott asked for a lien law which would enable contractors to have an attachment placed on a building whenever wages for its construction or remodeling were
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in arrears, but no action on this proposal was forthcoming for several years. Not until 1836 was the first of several laws passed permitting contractors to employ, without excessive cost, legal assistance in securing overdue wages.
At about this time a more widesweeping measure of relief was extended to the workingman in the form of enlightened regulations for proceedings in bankruptcy. Early debtor laws in this country, following English precedents, had rendered the debtor liable to imprison- ment for obligations of very insignificant amounts. Be- ginning in the second decade of the nineteenth century, such imprisonment was restricted in several states of the Union, including New York, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Pennsylvania. In 1826 women were freed from im- prisonment for debt in Connecticut, and eleven years later a similar concession was extended to men. The law of 1837 abolished imprisonment for a debt which did not involve fraud, misconduct, breach of promise, or inabili- ty to pay a fine, so that honest workingmen who had failed in business through misfortune were given a chance to make a fresh start in life, an opportunity to continue at work so as to benefit both themselves and their creditors.
Legislative relief for the working classes did not extend much beyond modifications in the attachment and the debtor laws. With the growth of corporations, to be sure, philanthropists became much exercised over the obliga- tions which business concerns should assume for the public welfare; many people hoped to have the state compel corporations to care for the moral as well as the physical health of their employees, by providing laborers with homes which would not only afford hygienic living conditions but space for privacy and secret vocal prayer. Others asserted that business companies should contrib-
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ute heavily to the support of schools, libraries, and churches. Contemporary lawmakers did not take kindly to suggestions of this sort, preferring to let the doctrine of laissez faire regulate not only business competition but the relations between labor and capital, and until the second half of the century little was done to secure state control of hours of labor, working conditions in factories, or the exploitation of women and children, except that a law of 1842 forbade the employment, in textile mills, of anyone under fourteen years of age for more than ten hours a day. In the absence of state regu- lations, workingmen turned to fraternal or cooperative societies for aid. There appeared in 1807, in New Haven, a Society of Mechanics, which built up a fund of $10,000, from which loans could be made to young apprentices and gifts extended to local benevolences. Organizations of the same sort were later founded in Hartford, Middle- town, Norwich, and Danbury, and if few of these accu- mulated large treasuries, they did provide members with intellectual benefits through small but well chosen libraries. The expansion of railroad transportation and mill industry thus worked many changes in Connecticut economic life, because the new business order brought people into intimate contact with outside communities, and hastened the breaking down of the old self-sufficient and ultra-conservative habits typical of the eighteenth century. The influence of these economic forces can also be traced in many social institutions of the period, as expanding industrialism brought in its wake a liberal trend.
In the early nineteenth century the Congregational church was the dominant sect in Connecticut, which through Calvinistic teachings imbued the people with an overpowering sense of the greatness of God and of His
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wrath against those who ignored His will. The nineteenth- century state was, indeed, a direct descendant of Puritan ancestors, and it was still swayed by the stern ideals of the colonial founders, so that the political upheaval which resulted in the constitutional reforms of 1818 had no permanent effect on a people who viewed all earthly events as a direct expression of divine purpose. The polit- ical revolution worked no lasting derangement in the ecclesiastical atmosphere of the state; Bible reading was retained as a customary family exercise in the morning; and the Puritan ideal of Sabbath observance was, in law at least, little altered until the second half of the century. Belief in a personal and omnipresent God suf- fered no diminution-it permeated all ranks of society and influenced all ages, so that children still in their teens could, after the manner of Ignatius Loyola, contemplate the physical horrors of death, the grave and dissolution, as a kindly reminder of the necessity for cultivating an upright life.
How awful a state of suspense [wrote one of these devout young people] when a friend lies upon the bed of death, torn by racking pains and expecting that each moment will be their last. Lying upon the brink of the grave, looking forward to the last gasp with terror, her parents and friends standing over her watching to catch the least glimpse of hope that will con- tinue their daughter and friend to them a little longer ... this King of Terrors . . . has pierced his victim and she yields up her life without a groan ... she too has gone to swell the congregation of the dead. Yes, the delight of all hearts ... is torn from us by the insatiate Monster Death.
The Congregational church was the dominant church in 1800 and in 1850 as well, though the half century in- tervening witnessed a few changes in its status. The con- stitution of 1818 deprived Congregationalism of its of- ficial connection with the state, so that it was thereafter
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forced to rely entirely upon its own resources for financial and spiritual support. A temporary feeling of despond- ency which followed the end of state assistance was soon overcome by a wave of revivalism, repetitions of which appeared at regular intervals for several decades. The first revival took place between 1819 and 1822, and was led by that tireless preacher of Litchfield, Lyman Beecher. Churches in the latter town, and in all parts of the state, doubled and sometimes trebled their member- ship, and religious meetings were held three or four times a week. In many ways the revival was a repetition of the Great Awakening of 1740, and there were in some par- ishes old people who could remember the days when Jonathan Edwards had preached on sinners in the hands of an angry God.
The encouraging results of this first revival freed Congregationalists from misgivings lest the termination of state support should bring about a permanent decline in their order. Later revivals were inspired by a different apprehension. The steady growth of other sects-espe- cially the Methodists and the Baptists-and the intro- duction of Unitarianism, compelled the older church to strengthen its guard against proselytizing. Unitarianism had originated about 1785 in Boston, to the neighborhood of which city it was still confined in 1820, but shortly thereafter anti-Trinitarian preachers entered Connecticut and began the establishment of regular congregations and churches. The movement made little headway, however; it was fiercely attacked by Lyman Beecher, who discov- ered as early as 1826 that the Calvinistic soil of Connecti- cut was not conducive to the growth of the strange vine, so that he left the state to attack the heresy in its strong- hold around Boston. The Congregationalists were not again much troubled by the advent of a new sect until
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about the middle of the century. Although there had probably been a few Roman Catholics in the state in the early years of the nineteenth century, the number of those owing allegiance to the Pope was so small as to cause little concern. Several Roman Catholic families began to appear about 1820, but not until after the great Irish immigration of the forties did the Roman Catholic church become a serious contender for numerical su- premacy among the local sects.
The revival movements in the Congregational church, which were begun as a campaign against the influence of "popular" or evangelical sects, resulted in a liberalizing of the Congregational clergy itself. Old style ministers viewed with distaste the mode of preaching typical of Baptist or Methodist ministers, but they were forced to admit its effectiveness in touching the emotions of hun- dreds who remained cold to the austere theological ser- mons delivered from the average Congregational pulpit. Lyman Beecher urged his fellow ministers to abandon some of their customary restraint. "Much as I am dis- gusted with artificial eloquence," he said, "I am still more disgusted with learned dullness. If a man has no feeling, let him not attempt to preach. If he have feeling, let him show it. Since animated noise will accomplish so much without either ideas, piety, or learning, it is a shame that good sense, piety, and learning should be set at naught and rivalled by superficial flippancy."
Beecher convinced a number of Congregational clergy- men to abandon dogmatic theology as the chief ingredient of Sunday sermons, and preachers of the new order, which may be said to have arisen about 1830, developed a broader and more sympathetic outlook on human problems than had been customary in preceding genera- tions. One of the most notable of the new school was
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Joel Hawes, pastor of the First Church in Hartford, who preached sermons to young people, especially young men, dealing with everyday problems such as the necessity for developing good personal habits, intelligence, and an interest in public affairs. Preaching of this sort was en- couraged by several contemporaries of Hawes-Dr. Nathaniel Taylor of the Yale Divinity School and the Rev. Horace Bushnell of Hartford-and the result was a discernible improvement in the influence of Congrega- tional ministers over the daily life of their parishioners.
Connecticut did not prove to be favorable ground for the propagation of new sects, so that the many innova- tions in religious teaching which appeared elsewhere during the unsettled years of the thirties and forties met little encouragement in the Puritan commonwealth. The teachings of William Miller, for example, or of Alexander Campbell, or Joseph Smith, made no impression on the mass of the people. When in 1845 the Mormons, then about to leave Nauvoo, Illinois, asked if they could find an asylum from persecution in Connecticut, the general assembly replied that good citizens did not need an asylum. Only one of the unique experiments in religious socialism found temporary lodgment in the state, this exception being the small Perfectionist colony at Walling- ford.
The religious history of the middle years of the nine- teenth century concerns itself with a steady expansion of churches which had been organized many generations previously. The Episcopal church, which ranked next to the Congregational in respect to wealth and prestige, grew steadily in numbers after 1800 until it embraced, in 1850, about nine thousand communicants. At the latter date this sect was surpassed in membership not only by the Congregational but by the Methodist and the Baptist
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organizations-estimates of the mid-century account for thirty-five thousand Congregational church members and for about the same number of Methodists and Baptists combined. The Episcopalians and Methodists became interested in college work, founding local institutions of their own to supplement the work of Yale, the estab- lished Congregational center of higher learning. Wash- ington College, later called Trinity, was founded by Episcopalian interests at Hartford in 1823, and Wesleyan, at Middletown, by the Methodists in 1831.
These new colleges, although established for religious reasons, did not specialize in religious teachings, and the liberalism which appeared in their curriculum require- ments influenced the older Connecticut college to give up some of its emphasis on theological and classical studies. Bishop Brownell, the first president of Washing- ton College, stressed the importance of "practicality" in education, a policy which placed great weight on such subjects as surveying and natural science. Willbur Fisk, president of Wesleyan, also promoted the study of non- classical subjects, such as chemistry, geology, and miner- alogy. After some hesitation Yale accepted this new trend in education; chemistry was made a popular study through the work of the elder Benjamin Silliman, who used to conduct experiments in a cellar some fifteen feet underground where his mixtures and decoctions could do little damage in case of explosions. During the adminis- tration of Theodore Dwight Woolsey, who became presi- dent in 1846, a school of chemistry was built around the courses offered by the younger Silliman and John P. Norton, the latter giving instruction in agriculture and soil chemistry. It was from this beginning that the Shef- field Scientific School, an independent unit allied to Yale College, later developed.
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In so far as college curricula were concerned, sectarian rivalry had some influence on the broadening of Con- necticut's educational system, but in other respects it did not make for a breaking down of conservative social habits. One of the important denominational churches was closely allied with the Congregational during the first part of the century, due to the terms of union, adopted in 1800, which permitted Congregational and Presbyterian churches to work together in settlements where separate parishes would have been undesirable. This interchange- able system, however, was not so much designed for Connecticut as for more sparsely populated districts in the West, in New York State, and the Ohio valley, where small towns were better served by one minister, whether Congregational or Presbyterian, than by two.
For various reasons the Methodist church, and also the Baptist, was frowned upon by the older sects; minis- ters of the former persuasion, especially, were subjected to criticism because many had been little trained in theology. The evangelistic sermons conducted by John N. Maffit, and the camp meetings common in Methodist circles, were very offensive to orthodox Calvinists. The Baptists were censured because their preachers knew so little theology, and also because they practiced the rite of public baptism by immersion, a novelty which at- tracted a motley crowd of curious and not always respect- ful spectators. Yet it cannot be said that either of these sects tended, as contemporary critics claimed, to cause any loosening of moral conduct; individual Methodists and Baptists were humble, modest persons, upright in their private lives, and possessed of as high a regard for the general good of society as were their Congregational detractors.
After the political revolution of 1818, the sectarian
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rivalry which had been very bitter, tended to subside, and with the growing complexity of city life the Protes- tant churches began to cooperate with greater harmony in order that all could work toward the solution of social problems springing up about them. Church people of all denominations became increasingly interested in or- ganized philanthropy, prison reform, temperance, and other questions which demanded the attention once devoted to doctrinal differences. A signal example of interdenominational cooperation may be seen in the Sunday School movement. The idea of a Sabbath Day school for young people was developed in England in the late eighteenth century, brought to this country by the Methodists, and taken up in Connecticut by Joseph Bellamy, a Congregational minister in the town of Beth- lehem. Bellamy organized informal classes of young people, holding some of the meetings out-of-doors, and at these pleasant gatherings under the trees of the church green the members studied not only the Bible but con- temporary social problems. Sunday Schools multiplied rapidly in the Congregational church during the period of religious uncertainty between 1816 and 1818, and after the latter year continued to increase because of the need for giving children the religious instruction that was being dropped from the common or public schools. In 1824 the Connecticut Sunday School Union was estab- lished, with Dr. Nathaniel Taylor as president, an or- ganization that embraced the schools in three denomi- nations, the Congregational, Methodist, and Baptist. By the time of the Civil War there were estimated to be nearly a thousand Sunday Schools in the state.
The churches were able to maintain, until the latter half of the century, the strict Sabbath Day observance which had been a typical feature of Puritan rule in
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colonial days. Early statutes had not only forbidden servile labor, gaming, and travel on Sunday, but also recreation of a sort which would today be considered quite harmless. Very few changes were made in the Sab- bath laws for a half century following the Revolutionary War, though in 1818 the restriction on Sunday travel was so modified as to permit the transportation of the United States mail, and in 1833 the prohibitions on recreation were lifted from Thanksgiving and Fast days. In other respects the public statutes reflected the views of that notable clergyman, Lyman Beecher, who declared in 1819 that one of the cardinal duties of a Christian was to preserve the Sabbath and uphold the public worship of God. Undoubtedly there was some laxity in the en- forcement of the law-ministers frequently complained of too much driving or walking about on the Sabbath- but public opinion generally supported the statutes.
Some progress was made before 1850 toward a breaking down of the Puritan prejudice against theatrical per- formances and other forms of commercial entertainment. Dramatic shows were occasionally given sub rosa, as shown by the sprightly memoirs of Gurdon W. Russell, published under the title of "Up Neck" in 1825. The author relates how, as a boy, he paid twelve and one-half cents for admission to a wooden shed behind a tavern, where a swashbuckling play was in progress, with the hero slashing away with a great sword, but Master Russell did not witness the last act because the city magistrates broke in and carried the players off to jail. Exhibitions of animals were sometimes permitted in spite of the general prejudice against circuses, this con- cession being made on the theory that the sight of caged lions and elephants would inspire children with a love for the study of natural history. Young people were not,
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however, expected to develop a taste for circuses or dramatics as entertainments good in themselves, and on occasions sober citizens testified to the fact, or supposi- tion, that students flocked to Connecticut academies and colleges because the community was free from the de- grading influences of such performances.
In 1837 appeared the first evidence of a sentiment in favor of more liberal circus laws, when a thousand citi- zens of Hartford, including such respectable people as Judge William Hamersley and Bishop Brownell, de- clared that it was ridiculous for Connecticut to outlaw theatrical entertainments which were not only con- doned but encouraged in almost every other state of the Union, and in all civilized nations of the world. The theater laws, however, remained unchanged for a quarter century more. Amusement had to be sought in its un- organized or non-commercial forms; people made merry at births and marriages, and served lavish refreshments at funerals. Much attention was paid to music, as young people flocked into church choirs or, with their elders, formed stringed quartets and orchestras. The nine- teenth-century counterparts of our modern charity balls were diverting also, and the Ladies Aid Fairs, at which some entertainment was mixed with philanthropy, af- forded a respite from the routine of daily affairs. Dr. Cogswell of the Hartford Retreat has left an amusing account of a fair given in 1830 for the benefit of poor female children. The sale, he noted, was held in a room over a market, and it embraced useful articles from jellies and custards to aprons which were hawked by matronly ladies who urged their wares so persistently that no one could refuse to buy. The best time, he added, came in the evening, when the room was beautifully illumined with soft candlelight, which caused female countenances to
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shine with real brilliancy, so that the ordinary became comely, and the beautiful beautiful indeed !
Movements in the direction of liberalism were more pronounced in the educational than in the religious sphere, and in connection with the changes in college curricula, previously noted, it is significant to observe that there were sporadic demands for a reform in public school-teaching. Connecticut was proud of its common school system, which had originated in the middle of the seventeenth century, a law of 1650 ordering that the town selectmen insist upon the education of all children, either by their parents or by hired teachers. In the course of a century following this enactment a comprehensive system was elaborated, the state being divided into school societies, which were subdivided into districts. Within each district was a single school, presided over by one teacher, and the several districts within the limits of a society were supervised by the taxpayers of the region, called together from time to time in assemblies similar to the regular town meetings. This system allowed great freedom of local action, as the state exercised over it little supervision other than an occasional scrutiny of expenditures to insure a proper use of the public money advanced from either the state treasury or from the income of the permanent School Fund. A system of this sort was suited to the needs of a sparsely settled agri- cultural community, and it functioned well until the rise of cities produced districts in which the number of children was too great to be effectively cared for by one teacher. Unfortunately the men in small communities did not keep in touch with the progressive methods of instruc- tion which were advanced in Europe, particularly in Swit- zerland and Prussia, and were being adapted to American usage in Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania.
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