The Reform Trail: A Map Journey Across Massachusetts

Follow a described map to five places where reformers worked for abolition, women's rights, public schools and better care.

Follow the map

A history club rode a bus along a one-day "Reform Trail" across Massachusetts. Read the map description and the stop notes. Then answer the questions.

The club's map: Stop A is Boston, on the coast. Stop B, Lexington, is about 11 miles northwest of Boston. Stop C, Worcester, is about 32 miles southwest of Lexington. Stop D, New Bedford, is a seaport about 60 miles southeast of Worcester. Stop E is the island of Nantucket, about 50 miles southeast of New Bedford, reached by boat. To get home, the club rode from New Bedford about 55 miles north to Boston.

Stop Notes: Reform in Massachusetts, 1830–1852

1Stop A, Boston. On January 1, 1831, William Lloyd Garrison printed the first issue of his newspaper, The Liberator, here, demanding an immediate end to slavery. Many Bostonians saw him as a dangerous troublemaker. In 1835 a mob seized him and led him through the streets with a rope, until the mayor had him locked in the jail for his own safety. In 1837 lawmakers at the State House created a Board of Education, and Horace Mann became its first secretary. Mann argued that free public schools paid for by taxes would turn children from every background into informed citizens. In 1843 Dorothea Dix gave the same lawmakers a written report, called a memorial, describing people with mental illness kept in cages, closets and cellars of jails and poorhouses, without care.

2Stop B, Lexington. In 1839 the nation's first state-run school for training teachers, called a normal school, opened here with three students, all young women. Mann believed good schools needed trained teachers. Before long, women made up most of the state's teachers, partly because towns could pay them less than men.

3Stop C, Worcester. After Dix's memorial, lawmakers voted money to enlarge the state hospital here for people with mental illness. In October 1850, Worcester also hosted the first National Woman's Rights Convention. Speakers, including Lucy Stone and Sojourner Truth, called for women's right to vote, to own property and to enter colleges and professions. About 1,000 people attended, and many newspapers reported on it.

4Stop D, New Bedford. In September 1838 Frederick Douglass escaped from slavery in Maryland and settled in this whaling port with his wife, Anna Murray Douglass, a free Black woman who had helped him escape. He worked on the docks. He soon began reading The Liberator.

5Stop E, Nantucket. In August 1841, at an antislavery meeting on the island, Douglass rose and spoke about his life in slavery. Abolitionists were so impressed that they hired him to give lectures. In 1845 he published his Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, which named the people who had enslaved him. Later that year he sailed to Britain, where he stayed for almost two years.

6The road ahead. In 1852 Massachusetts became the first state to require children from 8 to 14 to attend school for part of each year. Slavery lasted in the South until 1865, and women in Massachusetts could not vote in national elections until 1920.

In which direction did the club travel from the stop where women's rights reformers met in 1850 to the stop where Douglass settled after his escape?

A. Southwest
B. Northwest
C. Southeast
D. Northeast

A visitor wants to go from the place where teacher training began to the place where Dix's report led to a larger hospital. Which trip should she take?

A. From stop B southwest about 32 miles to stop C
B. From stop A northwest about 11 miles to stop B
C. From stop D southeast about 50 miles to stop E
D. From stop C southeast about 60 miles to stop D

Reformers on the trail used two kinds of methods. Sort each action.

Garrison prints The Liberator.Lawmakers create a Board of Education.Douglass speaks at the Nantucket meeting.The state opens a normal school in Lexington.Reformers hold a convention in Worcester.The state requires children to attend school.

Persuading the public (newspapers, speeches, books, meetings)	Government action (laws, state boards, state-run schools or hospitals)

Reformers and their methods

Use the map and the stop notes.

Why did Dix take her findings to the state's lawmakers?

A. Lawmakers had promised to print her report in the newspapers.
B. Lawmakers had helped her write the memorial.
C. Lawmakers could vote the money to build or enlarge hospitals.
D. Lawmakers ran the jails and poorhouses themselves each day.

Mann wanted taxes to pay for schools. Which stop shows another step he took to improve schools?

A. Stop B, where the state began training teachers
B. Stop D, where a man who escaped slavery found work
C. Stop C, where lawmakers enlarged a state hospital
D. Stop E, where an antislavery meeting hired a new speaker

The notes say towns paid women teachers less than men. What does this detail suggest about the reform era?

A. Women were not allowed to teach in Massachusetts until 1850.
B. New roles for women did not come with equal treatment.
C. Towns paid women more than men to draw them into teaching.
D. Mann wanted the normal school to train men rather than women.

Subtract the years.

Women in Massachusetts could vote in national elections years after the convention at Worcester.

Two sources from the trail

Read the two short sources. Then answer the questions.

Source 1. From the first issue of The Liberator, Boston, January 1, 1831. Garrison wrote: "I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation. . . . I am in earnest—I will not equivocate—I will not excuse—I will not retreat a single inch—and I will be heard."

Source 2. Adapted from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845), about his first years in New Bedford: "The paper became my meat and my drink. My soul was set all on fire. Its sympathy for my people in chains and its strong attacks on slavery sent a thrill of joy through my soul, such as I had never felt before."

Garrison wrote that he would not write "with moderation." Based on stop A, how did some Bostonians respond to his approach?

A. They ignored him because few people in Boston could read.
B. They saw him as dangerous, and a mob attacked him.
C. They voted to end slavery in the South that year.
D. They chose him to lead the Board of Education.

How does Source 2 help show that Garrison's newspaper had an effect?

A. It shows the paper was printed in New Bedford, not Boston.
B. It shows Garrison helped Douglass write his Narrative.
C. It proves most people in New Bedford read the paper.
D. It shows the paper inspired a reader who soon became a speaker.

10.

Douglass had escaped slavery, and under the law he could still be captured and returned to his enslaver. Circle the sentence from the stop E notes that best explains why staying in the United States became more dangerous for him in 1845.

In August 1841, at an antislavery meeting on the island, Douglass rose and spoke about his life in slavery.Abolitionists were so impressed that they hired him to give lectures.In 1845 he published his Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, which named the people who had enslaved him.

11.

Reformers on the trail used two methods: persuading the public, and getting the government to act. Which method did more to bring change by 1852? Make a claim, use evidence from at least two stops or sources, and explain your reasoning.