Judson, they sent her a formal note of encouragement on October 3, 1831. “Take this method to signify our entire approbation of the proposed undertaking, and our strong desire in its accomplishment,” Judson wrote. “Permit us to offer you our efficient aid, and our cordial support.”120
Crandall’s school served the white daughters of well-established families in Windham County. There was no reason to foresee controversy for Crandall’s school regarding the education of black women. The Canterbury Female Seminary was a private school. The tuition, while not exorbitant, was a barrier to some and would have been regarded—if anyone had thought about it—as impossible for the few black families in the region.
When Crandall moved into the schoolhouse in October 1831, newspaper advertisements promoted the new Canterbury Female Seminary: “The Board of Visitors recommend to the public patronage of Miss Crandall’s school and cheerfully add that she has already acquired a high reputation as an instructress, and the assiduity and attention which she devotes to the health and morals of her pupils renders her school a suitable place for education.”121 Twenty-seven-year-old Prudence Crandall launched her school.
Crandall’s experience working as a teacher in the neighboring town of Plainfield did not fully prepare her for the challenges involved in establishing an academy for girls. The idea of a woman creating a school, purchasing the necessary real estate, and serving as the school’s director and head teacher conflicted with fundamental conventions of the day. When Crandall joined the Canterbury Temperance Society to fight alcohol abuse, protocol prohibited Crandall and other women from speaking at the society’s public meetings—that privilege was reserved for men.122 In the 1830s women could not speak or vote at town meetings. Ironically, the fact that Crandall was not married provided her with a crucial advantage; under common law married women did not have the right to own real estate, control their finances, or conduct business through contracts.123 As a single woman, Crandall could control and manage the business affairs of her school.
The school operated continuously throughout the year, and students entered on a rolling basis. In the fall of 1831, more than twenty young women enrolled in the school. Most students came from Canterbury, but a few traveled from other towns and boarded at the school, including the daughter of State Senator Philip Pearl, who lived in the nearby town of Hampton.124 Crandall expanded the course offerings to include art, piano, and French.125 Her efforts impressed the Board of Visitors when they toured the Canterbury Female Seminary in January 1832.
Religion was always a central part of Crandall’s life; she adopted the Quaker beliefs of her parents and attended Quaker schools. Crandall believed moral affronts such as slavery, however, demanded active opposition, which was not always the Quaker way.126 At this pivotal moment in her life a religious movement took hold in much of the United States—a movement that drew her away from her Quaker roots.127
In the late 1820s and 1830s religious revivalism swept though the Northeast. After experiencing significant change in their social and economic lives, many Americans hungered for meaning and purpose beyond profit and materialism. Urbanization challenged agricultural traditions. Improved transportation created new markets and sources of goods, increased competition, and facilitated migrations of population.128 These changes brought higher standards of living for some, but also hastened the end of a diverse and local village economy. Industrialization and the expanding scale of manufacturing threatened the livelihoods of individual craftsmen and artisans and caused many to question whether the economic changes benefited their communities.129 As economic and social changes threatened older, familiar traditions, a new religious revival movement was born: the Second Great Awakening.130
Ministers such as Lyman Beecher preached evangelicalism as the religion of the common man.131 “Men are free agents, in the possession of such faculties, and placed in such circumstances, as render it practicable for them to do whatever God requires,” Beecher said.132 Beecher was wary of too much activism, however, especially regarding slavery and emancipation. He opposed the immediate abolition of slavery and favored the plan of gradual repatriation of blacks to Africa as advocated by the American Colonization Society.133 The religious awakening, however, soon promoted activism in all matters of reform, including abolitionism.
The religious movement became a crusade that challenged existing churches and denominations. Traveling ministers toured the New England countryside and held services in tents and open farm fields. Staid and predictable religious ceremonies were abandoned in favor of spontaneous revivals with emphatic and thrilling sermons. The charismatic preachers rejected complicated doctrine and spoke plainly and directly to parishioners. The outdoor revivals typically lasted three or four days and pushed all who attended to the brink of their endurance. In spite of exhaustion or perhaps as a result of it, those who participated were often filled with a sense of revelation and connection to the spiritual world.
The evangelical churches that focused on revivalism and reform included the Methodists, the Presbyterians, the Congregationalists, and the Baptists. Charles G. Finney, a Presbyterian minister who led revivals throughout the Northeast, was born in Connecticut, raised in upstate New York, and believed in religious self-determination. “Religion is the work of man,” Finney said. “It is something for man to do.”134 Finney believed that true Christians followed the word of God and actively worked to eradicate sin. Finney expected the revival movement to achieve nothing less than the universal reformation of the world.135 Finney preached against slavery on moral grounds, and other clergy and denominations in the Northeast followed suit.136 The New England Baptists broke away from their southern colleagues on the issue of slavery and adopted a proabolition stance.137
Plainfield mill owner Daniel Packer—soon to be an important friend of Prudence Crandall—financed the construction of a new Packerville Baptist Church during this time on the town line between Canterbury and Plainfield. For Packer, the church represented an opportunity to bring civility to a community he believed had deteriorated. Packer wanted to rid the region of newly developed “bad elements,” including drinking, horse racing, loose morals, and general vice that wreaked havoc with his workforce.138 A search for a minister resulted in the selection of Reverend Levi Kneeland, a graduate of the Hamilton Literary and Theological Institution in Hamilton, New York.139 Kneeland became the church’s first full-time minister in 1828. During the first eight months of Kneeland’s ministry at Packerville, church membership quadrupled.140 Kneeland baptized three hundred people during his six years at the Packerville Baptist Church.141
Prudence Crandall attended a number of Baptist revivals and started worshipping regularly at the Packerville church. On July 3, 1830, Crandall and a group of parishioners traveled by wagon to the banks of the Quinebaug River. Rev. Kneeland, Crandall, and a few of the church elders waded into the cool water. The current of the river was not strong in July, and they proceeded into the river until they were all waist deep. Holding Crandall’s arm with one hand and placing his other hand on her head, Rev. Kneeland baptized Crandall as she plunged underwater—fully immersed in the river—three times in acknowledgment of the Holy Trinity.142
Prudence’s interest in revivals and the “dunkers” as the Baptists were sometimes called, worried her younger brother Reuben, who practiced medicine in Peekskill, New York. Reuben believed her religious activity and attendance at revivals interfered with her responsibilities at the school. In the summer of 1831 he advised her in a letter to stop wasting time at revival meetings.143 “Do you, all hands, run off three to four days to meeting?” Reuben asked. “If you, the principal, or your assistants do, I shall have a very poor opinion of the principal or her assistants.”144 This became an ongoing source of disagreement between brother and sister. “I said enough when I was home, and I presume you think by this time I have said enough on any of these subjects,” Reuben wrote.145 Prudence did not let the opinion of her younger brother change her course. Her faith played a significant role in her decisions regarding the school, and Levi Kneeland served Crandall as a spiritual leader and friend.
Another reform movement—the temperance cause—gained great popularity throughout New England. The ravages of alcohol abuse