How did the Second Great Awakening impact abolitionists and women's rights?

Answer 1

Part of the Second Great Awakening was a new recognition that women were not the sinful, salacious creatures that they had been made out to be previously, because of the sin of Eve, but that they were indeed the salvation of the household--their husbands and children--as the pious ones. This played into the idea of Republican Motherhood as the ideal woman being a helpmate to her husband, providing the home as haven for him from the outside pressures of the public sphere, as well as the idea that the mother was the primary educator of her children, the sons as future leaders and the daughters as future homemakers as herself. Many of these Republican Mothers also began to seek a "public sphere" for themselves, engaging in activities such as library lectures and women's clubs, allowing them more time outside the home. From there, women began to search for more freedoms that they didn't have, including the right to vote.

As for abolitionism, the realization that "all men are created equal" (and, in many ways, the emphasis was on "men") made them understand that slavery was not necessarily part of God's plan for the human condition. Many abolitionists were also people of (Christian) faith, including ministers. While those in the South often used the Bible to perpetuate and support slavery *and* to instill obedience and subservience in their slaves, many in the North used the Bible to repudiate slavery and to support their defiance by maintaining safe houses on the Underground Railroad or by speaking out against it in churches and at abolitionist rallies. Harriet Beecher Stowe, the daughter of Congregationalist minister Lyman Beecher (also a well-known abolitionist), was certainly inspired by her faith when she wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Answer 2

2nd great awakening happened at one point in upstate New York, in what was called the Burned Over District. It was there in that region that the abolitionist movement and the women's movement began (Seneca Falls convention), as well as the Mormons and the 7th Day Adventists, and for that matter the No-Nothing Party and anti-Masonic party.

It was all about the people being equal before God, all of the people.