As colonial America progressed into a more advanced and modern union, many people began to have brilliant ideas and construct experiments to define them. Many of them were intellectuals, such as Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and the founding fathers of the United States. This led to an age of progress and optimism, which roots deep within Europe, called the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment also resulted in an outcry of protestant revivalism called the Great Awakening where many revivalists began to bring back people to religion and to rival against the intellectuals of the Enlightenment. Both of these movements influenced American intellectual and religious life.
The Enlightenment was known as the age of reason and optimism that sprung up in Europe around the 18th century. The Enlightenment really inspired the colonies in many ways. Intellectual people sprung up. Many of them led advances in technology and science, such as Ben Franklin and the lightning rod experiment. Some even invented new ideas such as the American Philosophical Society.
Many more people in the colonies began to read and think and contributed to the greater good of the findings of our nation. Because of the Enlightenment, many colonists became well educated and became more literate. They began to become more open to ideas and they began to share their ideas to each other. This also caused Deism to come up. Deism was the belief that a God created a universe, but let it alone to do its own work and did not interfere with it. This caused a religious revivalism and outcry to emerge throughout the colonies.
The Essay on Enlightenment Ideas And Political Figurers Of The Era
Intro to European History 3-3-99 Enlightenment Ideas and Political Figures of The Enlightenment Era The Enlightenment of the 18 th century was an exciting period of history. For the first time since ancient Grecian times, reason and logic became center in the thoughts of most of elite society. The urge to discover and to understand replaced religion as the major motivational ideal of the age, and ...
