Title: Selected religion titles from nineteenth century American literature and history
Description: Nearly fifty titles were selected from the literature of the frontier Ohio Valley and the South to illuminate religious and church history in these regions during the nineteenth century. When speaking of this history, Sydney Ahlstrom, in A Religious History of the American People, cautioned that "far more remarkable than the primitive and rudimentary aspects of frontier religion was the persistence with which the thought, institutions, and practice of Europe and the settled East crossed the mountains and penetrated the life of the newly settled areas" (p. 453). The first half of the century was characterized by the revival spirit generated at the 1800 camp meeting organized by at the Gasper River Church in southwestern Kentucky and the 1801 outpouring of religious excitement at Cane Ridge in Bourbon County, Kentucky. Revivalism spurred the sensational growth of popular denominations such as the Methodists and the Baptists in the West. The Presbyterians did not sustain such rapid growth but were the first group to begin working beyond the Alleghenies. Their vigorous efforts to adapt to frontier conditions led to divisions, including that led by the minister Barton Stone. Other adaptations included the project of Alexander Campbell to undo denominationalism. Central and western New York was the proving ground for expanding Congregationalism and Presbyterianism. The new voluntary organizations born in the evangelical fire of the period, such as the American Home Missionary Society, brought the influence of New England religion to the frontier. In the last half of the century, the issue of slavery would divide denominations, North and South. The titles included here demonstrate the variety of forms in which spiritual conversation shaped the culture beyond the Alleghenies. The poetry of Sandford C. Cox and Anthony Hunn, the hymns of Allen D. Carden and William Downs, and the ballads of Alice Cary can be examined for what they reveal about religion outside of the East. The memoir Ten Years of Preacher-Life tells the story of the blind preacher William Henry Milburn, whose early ministry involved traveling by horseback around the Midwest as a Methodist circuit rider. Theological debates that originated or affected religious life in the Ohio Valley and the South were published and circulated. Included are works on the doctrine of grace and universal atonement, Arianism, the final perseverance of the saints, and the doctrine of the Trinity. Important nineteenth-century histories of Western Methodism and Shakerism are found alongside general commentaries on spiritual matters by important academics based west of the Alleghenies. The first Roman Catholic bishop of Peoria, Illinois, John Lancaster Spalding, is represented with numerous titles on religion, art, and education. An additional grouping of works give a representative sampling of pieces on morals by authors associated with influential voluntary associations or the medical profession. Finally, the collection offers a fine selection of primary sources on the passionate debates involving church, slavery, and morality. These include numerous titles by the important abolitionist James Gillespie Birney. Overall, this collection provides a particularly useful sampling of the literature of various denominations, the theological and political issues, and the modes of religious expression found in the Ohio Valley and the South during the nineteenth century.
Subjects: Religion and literature, Religion and religious literature, History
Places: Ohio River Valley, Southern States