Suggestions
Use up and down arrows to review and enter to select.Please wait while we process your payment
If you don't see it, please check your spam folder. Sometimes it can end up there.
If you don't see it, please check your spam folder. Sometimes it can end up there.
Please wait while we process your payment
By signing up you agree to our terms and privacy policy.
Don’t have an account? Subscribe now
Create Your Account
Sign up for your FREE 7-day trial
Already have an account? Log in
Your Email
Choose Your Plan
Individual
Group Discount
Save over 50% with a SparkNotes PLUS Annual Plan!
Purchasing SparkNotes PLUS for a group?
Get Annual Plans at a discount when you buy 2 or more!
Price
$24.99 $18.74 /subscription + tax
Subtotal $37.48 + tax
Save 25% on 2-49 accounts
Save 30% on 50-99 accounts
Want 100 or more? Contact us for a customized plan.
Your Plan
Payment Details
Payment Summary
SparkNotes Plus
You'll be billed after your free trial ends.
7-Day Free Trial
Not Applicable
Renews May 1, 2024 April 24, 2024
Discounts (applied to next billing)
DUE NOW
US $0.00
SNPLUSROCKS20 | 20% Discount
This is not a valid promo code.
Discount Code (one code per order)
SparkNotes PLUS Annual Plan - Group Discount
Qty: 00
SparkNotes Plus subscription is $4.99/month or $24.99/year as selected above. The free trial period is the first 7 days of your subscription. TO CANCEL YOUR SUBSCRIPTION AND AVOID BEING CHARGED, YOU MUST CANCEL BEFORE THE END OF THE FREE TRIAL PERIOD. You may cancel your subscription on your Subscription and Billing page or contact Customer Support at custserv@bn.com. Your subscription will continue automatically once the free trial period is over. Free trial is available to new customers only.
Choose Your Plan
For the next 7 days, you'll have access to awesome PLUS stuff like AP English test prep, No Fear Shakespeare translations and audio, a note-taking tool, personalized dashboard, & much more!
You’ve successfully purchased a group discount. Your group members can use the joining link below to redeem their group membership. You'll also receive an email with the link.
Members will be prompted to log in or create an account to redeem their group membership.
Thanks for creating a SparkNotes account! Continue to start your free trial.
We're sorry, we could not create your account. SparkNotes PLUS is not available in your country. See what countries we’re in.
There was an error creating your account. Please check your payment details and try again.
Please wait while we process your payment
Your PLUS subscription has expired
Please wait while we process your payment
Please wait while we process your payment
German immigrants also arrived en masse during the same period. Many came to escape persecution after a democratic revolution in Germany in 1848 had failed. The German immigrants were generally wealthier than the Irish and therefore rarely settled in the cities.
A significant number of native-born Americans resented immigrant groups. These “nativists” denigrated the Irish and Germans as ignorant and inferior and also discriminated against them because of their Catholic background.
In the 1850s, many nativists joined the anti-immigration American Party, or Know-Nothing Party. Most Know-Nothings were Protestant middle-class Americans whose jobs could be threatened by unskilled Irish and German workers. The party’s base was primarily northern: manufacturing and wage jobs were located almost exclusively in the North, so the “immigrant problem” was not a factor in the South. The Know-Nothing Party was popular enough to take control of a few northern state legislatures in the 1850s and to field a major presidential candidate, Millard Fillmore, in the 1856 election. The Know-Nothings, though a minority, were thus highly influential in politics at the time.
American intellectuals began to address these startling social and political changes in new novels, poems, and essays. In New England, for example, the Transcendentalists argued that there is knowledge beyond what the senses can perceive and that ultimate truth “transcends” the physical world. Between 1830 and 1850, Transcendentalists such as essayists Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau and poet Walt Whitman championed self-reliance, independence, and a fierce individuality that matched the character of the developing nation.
Poets John Greenleaf Whittier and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and novelist Louisa May Alcott also wrote about the new America. Other commentators, including the so-called Dark Romantics, who included poet Edgar Allan Poe and novelists Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne, had a more critical view of American society in the years before the Civil War.
Generally, women were shut out from the economic opportunities of the Market Revolution. Through the antebellum years, many Americans continued to believe that men and women worked in separate spheres—men outside the home, and women inside. Often labeled the “Cult of Domesticity,” this social norm encouraged “good” women to be responsible not only for day-to-day housekeeping but also for making the home a happy and nurturing environment for their wage laborer husbands. Women were also expected to educate their children and provide moral guidance. Higher education did not become an option for women until the late 1830s (see The Spirit of Reform, p. 52).
Please wait while we process your payment