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Wilderness Aplenty, but Prophets Few: Religion and the Problem(s) of a New Gilded Age
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 February 2020
Abstract
This essay argues that, whatever the continuities between the religious worlds of the late nineteenth century and those of our own time, the discontinuities are significant enough that we should be cautious in deploying the notion of a new Gilded Age. In particular, the prevalence of work-class conservatism in recent decades stands in stark contrast to the roiling debates and radical departures spearheaded by working-class believers involved with the early labor movement.
- Type
- Special Issue: A Second Gilded Age?
- Information
- The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era , Volume 19 , Issue 2 , April 2020 , pp. 271 - 277
- Copyright
- Copyright © Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 2020
References
Notes
1 “Church Notes,” The Augustana Journal (Rock Island, IL), June 15, 1896, 5; “Dedication of Trinity Swedish Lutheran Church,” Svenska Tribunen (Chicago), June 23, 1897, included in the Foreign Language Press Survey, http://flps.newberry.org/article/5423404_4_1500 (accessed on Jan. 1, 2020); “Rev. Swen August Sandahl,” The Young Lutheran's Companion (Rock Island, IL), Mar. 5, 1910, 4; “Trinity, Chicago,” The Lutheran Companion (Rock Island, IL), Mar. 1, 1913, 10.
2 Ariel Cheung, “This Heavenly Condo Inside Converted Lakeview Church Will Blow You Away,” May 10, 2017, www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20170510/lakeview/cathedral-place-condo-seminary-alexander-pearsall-trinity-swedish-evangelical-lutheran-church (accessed Jan. 1, 2020).
3 “America's Changing Religious Landscape,” Pew Research Center Demographic Study, May 12, 2015, www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/americas-changing-religious-landscape (accessed Jan. 1, 2020).
4 Daniel Burke, “Religious Leaders Respond to the Rise of the ‘Nones,’” Religious News Service, https://religionnews.com/2012/10/10/religious-leaders-react-to-the-rise-of-the-nones (accessed Jan. 1, 2020).
5 The body of this essay draws significantly from the findings of my book, Union Made: Working People and the Rise of Social Christianity in Chicago (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015)Google Scholar.
6 See Christiano, Kevin J., Religious Diversity and Social Change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987)Google Scholar; Braude, Anne, “Women's History is American Religious History,” in Tweed, Thomas, ed., Retelling U.S. Religious History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 87–107Google Scholar.
7 See Hopkins, Charles Howard, The Rise of the Social Gospel in American Protestantism, 1865–1915 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1940), 84Google Scholar; Abell, Aaron Ignatius, The Urban Impact on American Protestantism, 1865–1900 (London: Archon, 1962), 61–62Google Scholar; Dorn, Jacob Henry, Washington Gladden: Prophet of the Social Gospel (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1966), 211–12Google Scholar.
8 See for example “Need the Help of the Clergy: Laborers Demand the Support of Ministers in their Fight against Capital,” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 13, 1891.
9 Perry, H. Francis, “The Workingman's Alienation from the Church,” American Journal of Sociology 4 (Mar. 1899): 621–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
10 This is one of the central arguments of my book, Union Made.
11 Wright, Leslie C., Scottish Chartism (London: Oliver and Boyd Ltd., 1953), 39–40Google Scholar.
12 “The Labor Turmoil,” Alliance (Chicago), Jan. 3, 1874, 2.
13 “The Working Man of the Present Day,” Advance (Chicago), Sept. 26, 1867, 1.
14 “Autor Ultra Crepidam!,” Workingman's Advocate (New York), Sept. 28, 1867.
15 “They Want Blood,” Chicago Daily Tribune, Apr. 29, 1885.
16 Quoted in Ashbaugh, Carolyn, Lucy Parsons: American Revolutionary (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr Publishing Company, 1976), 169–70Google Scholar. For more on this radical tradition, see Burns, David, The Life and Death of the Radical Historical Jesus (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Janine Giordano Drake, “Between Religion and Politics: The Working Class Religious Left, 1886–1920” (PhD diss., University of Illinois, 2012).
17 “Why Are the Laboring Classes Leaving the Churches?” Knights of Labor (Chicago), Feb. 1, 1888, 4.
18 See Carter, Heath W., “Striking Out on its Own: Labor and the Modern Church,” Chicago History 37 (Summer 2011): 4–19Google Scholar.
19 “Debs on the Great Strike,” New World 3 (Apr. 13, 1895): 8.
20 “Pastor Takes No Strikers’ Advice,” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 25, 1894.
21 “Shy of Patrimonium,” Chicago Record, May 31, 1894.
22 See the “Registrar of Communicants,” archived at the Pullman Presbyterian Church, Chicago, IL. For more on this story, see Carter, Heath W., “Scab Ministers, Striking Saints: Christianity and Class Conflict in 1894 Chicago,” American Nineteenth Century History 11, no. 3 (2010): 321–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
23 See Hopkins, The Rise of the Social Gospel in American Protestantism, 280–317; Abell, The Urban Impact on American Protestantism, 137–88.
24 See for example Dochuk, Darren, From Bible Belt to Sunbelt: Plainfolk Religion, Grassroots Politics, and the Rise of Evangelical Conservatism (New York: W. W. Norton, 2011)Google Scholar; Kruse, Kevin M., One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America (New York: Basic Books, 2015)Google Scholar; Moreton, Bethany, To Serve God and Wal-Mart: The Making of Christian Free Enterprise (Boston: Harvard University Press, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
25 See for example Chris Agoranos and John Thornton Jr., “Why a Southern Church is Hosting Socialist Meetings,” Sojourners, Apr. 22, 2018, https://sojo.net/articles/why-southern-church-hosting-socialist-meetings (accessed Jan 1, 2020). On the op-ed front, consider the work of Elizabeth Bruenig, who started at the New Republic and now writes and edits for the New York Times.