The Second Great Awakening (jan 1, 1790 – jan 1, 1840)

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During the early decades of the 19th century, religious revivals had swept the country as a reaction against concepts such rationalism, which characterized the era of Enlightenment and the American Revolution. In the 1790s, Calvinism first served to attack liberal views that came out of more liberal churches such as the Unitarian Church. This takeover of religious revival was known as the Second Great Awakening, and was characterized by figures such as Reverend Timothy Dwight, president of Yale College in Connecticut. The campus motivated a new generation of men to become evangelical preachers - the most successful ones were popular because they were audience-centered and understood by the uneducated, and preached the popular opinion of attaining the opportunity for salvation for all regardless of class, an idea that paralleled the democratization of American society.

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