Revivalism, Social Conscience, and Community in the Burned-Over District: The Trial of Rhoda Bement

Saltzgaber, Jan M.,Altschuler, Glenn C.

ISBN 10: 0801492467 / ISBN 13: 9780801492464

Published by Cornell University Press, 1983

Very Good - Crisp, clean, unread book with some shelfwear/edgewear, may have a remainder mark - NICE PAPERBACK Standard-sized. Seller Inventory # M0801492467Z2

Synopsis:

In 1843 in Seneca Falls, New York, Rhonda Bement was brought before a disciplinary trial at her church, the First Presbyterian Church, charged with "unchristian and unladylike" behavior. Her transgression was to challenge the authority and integrity of her minister because he had refused to read to the congregation her announcement about abolitionist lectures taking place in the village, and she was eventually excommunicated. The transcript of her trial is the centerpiece of Revivalism, Social Conscience, and Community in the Burned-Over District, which presents through the testimonies of the witnesses the tensions between organized religion and the reform movements of abolitionism, temperance, and women's rights that were sweeping the country in this period.

The book is divided into three parts. Jan M. Saltzgaber sets the stage in an introductory essay that examines the religious and social ramifications of the Second Great Awakening in the "burned-over" region of New York, analyzing in detail the changing social and economic environment of Seneca Falls and delineating connections between these changes and the currents of revival and reform in the 1830s and 1840s. The fully-annotated text of the trial is then presented in its entirety. In the epilogue, Glenn C. Altschuler uses the trial and evidence from other local churches to reassess the divisive effects of revivalism, stressing local conditions and church practices that acted as centripetal forces that impressed conservatives, moderates, and even "ultraists" with the importance of church unity.

About the Author:

Glenn C. Altschuler is Vice President for University Relations, Dean of the School of Continuing Education and Summer Sessions, Thomas and Dorothy Litwin Professor of American Studies, and a Weiss Presidential Fellow at Cornell University. His books include, as coauthor, The 100 Most Notable Cornellians (also from Cornell) The GI Bill: A New Deal for Veterans and Rude Republic: Americans and Their Politics in the 19th Century, and, as author, Andrew D. White: Educator, Historian, Diplomat. Jan M. Saltzgaber is Professor Emeritus of History at Ithaca College.

Bibliographic Details

Title: Revivalism, Social Conscience, and Community...
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Publication Date: 1983
Binding: Paperback
Condition: Very Good