Specifically, it was more appealing to Methodists and
Baptists, who resembled the fire and brimstone religious revivals of the First Great
Awakening one hundred years earlier. They closely tied one's personal moral
responsibility to not only save souls by converting them, but to practice lifelong acts
of Christian charity and humanity as a means of
salvation.
The temperance movement against alcohol use and
sale was formed during the Second Great Awakening, as was the reform movement to turn
prisons into "rehabilitation" centers. The very word "penitentiary" comes from the root
word "penitent" which means submission unto God. Dorothea Dix reformed those prisons
and mental hospitals and people listened to a woman in those days because of the
religious awakening that was taking place, because Christianity gave her moral
authority.
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