liar diseases. Steadily accumulating knowledge did gradually translate into longer life spans. The cities of the East, though, were burdened by overcrowding and wretched sanitary conditions. They became breeding grounds for infectious diseases such as tuberculosis; in the late 1850s, American cities had the highest death rates in the world. Rural communities across the country, meanwhile, often relied on midwives for medical attention, especially in the area of child delivery. Women's efforts to gain further medical education were thwarted at seemingly every turn, and few women were able to obtain advanced degrees. Finally, however, the Female Medical College of Pennsylvania--the first women's medical school--was established in 1850. Nineteenth-century America featured a wide array of religious faiths that served as a unifying element for communities across the country. The evangelical zeal that swept the country in the first part of the 1800s was especially evident in such regions as Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee, home to pioneers who used religion as a central building block in the creation of communities. Fledgling Methodist and Baptist denominations proved adept at speaking to the common populace, and this ability vaulted them past older Protestant faiths to become the largest denominations in America by 1820. As freedom of religion became entrenched as a core principle of the American idea, new religions without Old World ties popped up, and existing denominations continued to splinter. But while these faiths differed in various respects, they were unified in their passion for America and took pains to emphasize that the country was a nation inextricably intertwined with God. As the century progressed, religious revivalism assumed ever-greater importance all across the nation. Religious practices, however, were shaped by regional interests and viewpoints. This led most Southern churches to deny that slavery was an immoral practice ...
