- Reform Movement is a kind of social movement that aims to make gradual change, or change in certain aspects of society, rather than rapid or fundamental changes.
- A reform movement is distinguished from more radical social movements such as revolutionary movements.
- Reformists' ideas are often grounded in liberalism, although they may be rooted in socialist or religious concepts.
- Some rely on personal transformation; others rely on small collectives, such as Mahatma Gandhi's spinning wheel and the self-sustaining village economy, as a mode of social change.
- Reactionary movements, which can arise against any of these, attempt to put things back the way they were before any successes the new reform movements enjoyed, or to prevent any such successes.
- An historian of the Chartist movement observed that "The Chartist movement was essentially an economic movement with a purely political programme.
- A period of bad trade and high food prices set in, and the drastic restrictions on Poor Law relief were a source of acute distress.
- The London Working Men's Association, under the guidance of Francis Place, found itself in the midst of a great unrest.