Revivalism, Social Conscience, and Community in the Burned-Over District: January 4, 1782-December 29, 1785: The Trial of Rhoda Bement

by Glenn C. Altschuler (Author), Jan M. Saltzgaber (Author)

New
Paperback
2010
$39.05

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.

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.

$39.05

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 180
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Published: 29 Sep 2010
ISBN 10: 0801492467
ISBN 13: 9780801492464

Media Reviews

This book demonstrates how well a case study in local history can explore and illuminate regional and national issues. . . . It is a small classic as it explores the struggle to establish community stability and personal trust as the foundation for American society when it was dominated by churches, moral agencies, and the voluntary tradition. -Church History

This is a concise, well-written book that pulls the reader into the drama of Rhonda Bement's trial as well as into the larger issues at stake. This book is not only an important interpretive work but a model of how such interpretation should be done. -Choice

This book is a major contribution to our understanding of nineteenth-century America religion in social and political life. . . . It is an important one for feminist, religious, social, and political historians, and for theologians. After reading it, the categories no longer seem so convincingly separate. Local history can cast light on cosmic questions. -The Heythrop Journal

This is a small jewel of a book. It is brief, elegant, dramatic, and best of all, full of paradoxes and ambiguities. Teachers and students should thrive on it. -Norma Basch, Rutgers University, Newark

Author Bio

Glenn C. Altschuler is the Thomas and Dorothy Litwin Professor of American Studies and the Dean of the School of Continuing Education and Summer Sessions at Cornell University. He is a former columnist for the New York Times and the author or coauthor of several books, including Rude Republic: Americans and Their Politics in the 19th Century and All Shook Up: How Rock 'n Roll Changed America. Isaac Kramnick is Richard J. Schwartz Professor of Government and Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education at Cornell University. He is the author or editor of many books, including studies of the American founding fathers, Tom Paine, Edmund Burke, and the twentieth-century Englishman Harold Laski. R. Laurence Moore is Howard A. Newman Professor of American Studies and History at Cornell University. He, too, is the author of many books, including the forthcoming Touchdown Jesus and the Mixing of Sacred and Secular in Democratic America. In addition, Kramnick and Moore are coauthors of The Godless Constitution: The Case against Religious Correctness.