Erica Ciallela's blog

During the early nineteenth century, the Second Great Awakening swept across the United States. The Protestant religious revival offered a backdrop for three key movements that helped define the nineteenth century. Abolition, temperance, and spiritualism were seen as social catalysts to form a more perfect society.

Belle da Costa Greene was librarian for J. Pierpont Morgan from 1905–1913, J. P. Morgan Jr. from 1913–1924, and director at the Pierpont Morgan Library from 1924–1948. Her career spanned two world wars and the Great Depression.

Reform movements took root as the Second Great Awakening swept across the United States. From abolition and temperance to labor and women’s rights, there was a call for the nation to be remade. By the 1840s, the political landscape was shifting and innovations in science were reinvigorating American culture.

In 1920, the Eighteenth Amendment prohibited the sale and transport of alcohol. Repealed in 1933, this brief period in American history, known as Prohibition, created a cultural movement that defined a decade and was known for its speakeasies, mob runners, and bootlegging. The roots of Prohibition can be traced to 1826, and the founding of the American Temperance Society.