How did the rise of evangelical protestantism premote the reform movements of the 1830s and 1840s?

During the 1830s and 1840s a variety of reform movements sprang up in the United States.  These covered everything from educational reform to the reform of insane asylums to abolitionism.

Historians often attribute these reform movements to the rise of evanglical protestantism.  The idea is that evangelical protestantism emphasized that people and society could be perfected.  Once people came to believe in this idea they (and middle class women in particular) started to work to perfect people and society.

Thus, the rise of evangelical protestantism helped lead to the rise of reform movements.