Modern Revivalism

This book is concerned with religious revivalism in the United States since 1825. It attempts to explain the part which revivalism has played, and is playing today, in the social, intellectual, and religious life of America. The aim has been, in describing the development of modern revivalism and the men who devoted their lives to it, to look below the surface phenomenon in an effort to discover why revivals have constantly recurred, what their effects have been, and what they meant not only to those directly concerned but to all Americans. If the revivals of the past century and a quarter have not always been the crucial factors in the course of American history that their devout exponents claimed, they have nevertheless been more significant than the social historians have yet acknowledged. from the Preface

"From 1884 to 1911, over 1.5 million working-class Canadians attended approximately 800 revival meetings held by celebrity American evangelists. Revival in the City traces the development of American revivalism, the support of the daily press "image makers," and working class acceptance of a populist form of conservative evangelicalism in Canada. Eric Crouse argues that by 1911, despite the endorsement of the masses and the press, protestant leaders, were less willing to work together to champion modern revivalism that embraced orthodox theology and popular culture strategies."--BOOK JACKET.

The influence of revivalism is writ large in the history of modern Ireland, particularly as we commemorate a 'decade of centenaries'. Yet, whether in Ireland or elsewhere, no study of revivalism as a critical cultural practice exists, rather one tends to speak of specific revivals such as the Gothic Revival, the Gaelic Revival and so on. Surely, beyond the specific circumstances of these revivals, lies a set of fundamental concerns which arise from our experience of time, cultural memory and the quest for continuity? This book seeks to address this question by firstly locating revivalism within the broader history of ideas and, secondly, undertaking a conceptual case study of revivalism within Modern Irish literature. The conceptual development of revivalist discourse is explored here from the Counter-Reformationists of the seventeenth century, to the guardians of the scribal tradition in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Protestant evangelicals and Irish nationalists and Gaelic League in the nineteenth century, the Easter Rising and the challenges of independence in the twentieth century through to the concerns of contemporary literature in Irish. While literature in Irish has encountered a steady degree of adversity over the course of the last four centuries this itself has led to a consciousness of it own medium. With this has come an awareness of the precariousness of continuity on the one hand and a glimpse of the transformative potential of renewal on the other. Revivalism emerges as a response to a crisis of continuity and a means to realise our own agency.

This book provides a fresh, in-depth examination of the Revival of 1857-58, a widespread religious awakening most famous for urban prayer meetings in major metropolitan centers across the United States. Often mentioned in religious history texts and articles but overshadowed by scholarly attention to the first and second "Great Awakenings," the revival has lacked a critical, book-length analysis. This study will help to fill this gap and to place the event within the context of Protestant revival traditions in America. The Revival of 1857-58 was a multifaceted religious movement that Long suggests may have been the closest thing to a truly national revival in American history. The awakening marked the coming together of formalist and populist evangelical groups, particularly in urban areas, and helped to create the beginnings of a transdenominational religious identity among middle-class American evangelicals. Long explores the revival from various angles, emphasizing the importance of historiography and examining the way Calvinist clergy and the editors of the daily press canonized particular versions of the revival story, most notably its role in the history of great awakenings and its character as a masculine "businessmen's revival." She gives attention to grassroots perspectives on the awakening and also pursues wider social and cultural questions, including whether the revival actually affected evangelical involvement in social reform. The book combines insights from contemporary scholarship concerning revivals, women's history, and nineteenth-century mass print with extensive primary source research. The result is a clearly written study that blends careful description with nuanced analysis.