In APUSH, intellectual movements are the big waves of ideas, like the Enlightenment and the First Great Awakening, that crossed the Atlantic into the colonies, spread through print culture, and taught colonists to question traditional authority in religion and government.
Intellectual movements are organized shifts in how a society thinks. In Unit 2, the two that matter most are the European Enlightenment, which championed reason, science, and natural rights, and the First Great Awakening, a wave of evangelical revivalism. Both crossed the Atlantic into British North America and spread through a growing transatlantic print culture (newspapers, pamphlets, sermons). Per KC-2.2.I.A, the mix of different European religious and ethnic groups already made the colonies pluralistic, and these movements amplified that intellectual exchange.
Here's the twist the CED wants you to see. These ideas arrived from Europe, so they actually made the colonies more English at first (Anglicization). But the same ideas planted seeds of independence. Enlightenment political thought, plus religious diversity and local self-government, fed an ideology critical of imperial corruption (KC-2.2.I.D). Think of intellectual movements as imported software that colonists eventually ran against the people who shipped it.
This term lives in Topic 2.7 (Colonial Society and Culture) in Unit 2 and supports two learning objectives. APUSH 2.7.A asks you to explain how the movement of people and ideas across the Atlantic built American culture, and intellectual movements are literally the 'ideas' half of that. APUSH 2.7.B asks why colonists' view of Britain soured, and Enlightenment political thought is one of the named ingredients of colonial resistance. It also feeds the American and National Identity theme, because ideas like natural rights and religious independence become the vocabulary of the Revolution in Unit 3. If you can trace an idea from a European salon to a colonial pamphlet to the Declaration of Independence, you're doing exactly what this concept is for.
Enlightenment (Unit 2)
The Enlightenment is the headline intellectual movement of the colonial era. Its emphasis on reason, science, and natural rights gave colonists a non-religious way to argue that authority must be justified, not just inherited.
Anglicization (Unit 2)
Intellectual movements traveled the same channels that made colonists more British, namely print culture and commercial ties. That's the irony worth remembering. Becoming more English in books and habits is what eventually armed colonists with English ideas of liberty to use against Britain.
Benjamin Franklin (Unit 2)
Franklin is the walking example of Enlightenment ideas in colonial America. His electricity experiments, libraries, and newspapers show how print culture turned abstract European philosophy into practical colonial improvement.
Revolutionary ideology (Unit 3)
The CED says colonial resistance drew on Enlightenment political thought and an ideology critical of imperial corruption. That's the bridge from Topic 2.7 to the Declaration of Independence. The intellectual movements of Unit 2 supply the arguments of Unit 3.
Multiple-choice questions usually give you a scenario and ask you to identify which movement or combination of influences it reflects. A classic setup describes Benjamin Franklin's experiments or a colonial printer attacking a corrupt royal governor, then asks what transatlantic pattern that shows (Enlightenment ideas spreading via print culture, plus evolving ideas of English liberty). For short answers and essays, this term is most useful as evidence of causation and continuity. You can use intellectual movements to explain why colonists developed an identity distinct from Britain, or to connect colonial-era ideas to Revolutionary arguments in Unit 3. No released FRQ uses the phrase 'intellectual movements' verbatim, but the underlying content, especially the Enlightenment's influence on colonial resistance, is standard material for context and evidence paragraphs.
Both are transatlantic movements in Topic 2.7, but they pull in different directions. The Enlightenment is secular and rational, trusting human reason and science. The Great Awakening is religious and emotional, trusting personal conversion experiences. Here's the exam-ready punchline though. Both undermined traditional authority, the Enlightenment by questioning inherited political power and the Awakening by letting ordinary people challenge established ministers. The AP exam loves that convergence.
Intellectual movements in colonial America, mainly the Enlightenment and the First Great Awakening, were waves of ideas that crossed the Atlantic and reshaped how colonists thought about authority.
These ideas spread through a transatlantic print culture of newspapers, pamphlets, and sermons, which is the mechanism the CED keeps pointing to in KC-2.2.I.A and KC-2.2.I.B.
Religious and ethnic pluralism in the colonies created the intellectual exchange that let these movements take root and spread.
The Enlightenment emphasized reason, science, and natural rights, while the Great Awakening emphasized emotional religious experience, but both taught colonists to question traditional authority.
Enlightenment political thought, combined with local self-government and religious independence, became a core ingredient of colonial resistance to imperial control (KC-2.2.I.D).
Benjamin Franklin is your go-to example of Enlightenment ideas in action, blending science, civic improvement, and print culture in one person.
They're large-scale shifts in ideas that crossed the Atlantic into the colonies, mainly the European Enlightenment and the First Great Awakening. In Topic 2.7, they explain how colonial culture developed and why colonists eventually questioned British authority.
No. The Enlightenment was a secular movement built on reason and science, while the First Great Awakening was an evangelical religious revival built on emotional conversion. They overlap in effect, though, because both encouraged colonists to challenge established authority.
Both, and that's the point. At first they fueled Anglicization, since colonists were reading English books and copying English political models. Over time, those same English ideas of liberty and Enlightenment natural rights became the arguments colonists used against Britain.
Mainly through transatlantic print culture, meaning newspapers, pamphlets, books, and published sermons, plus intercolonial trade ties. Benjamin Franklin's printing career and scientific experiments are the textbook example of this in action.
The CED directly links colonial resistance to Enlightenment political thought, evolving ideas of liberty, and criticism of imperial corruption (KC-2.2.I.D). The ideas colonists absorbed in the early 1700s became the justification for revolution in Unit 3.