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The Religious Revival of 1857–8 in The United States

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Richard Carwardine
Richard Carwardine*
Affiliation:
University of Sheffield
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Extract

In August 1858 an American minister described the current revival in that country as a ‘Fourth Great Awakening’ to be likened to pentecost, the sixteenth-century reformation and the eighteenth-century awakening in colonial America. His historical judgment was weak, but his euphoria typified the mood of American evangelicals after a year of mass conversions. Particularly through denominational ‘protracted meetings’ and inter-denominational or ‘union’ prayer meetings, all the protestant churches throughout the country shared in the excitement. Even many of the more cautious episcopalians, Unitarians and universalists showed sympathy for a wave of revivals which seemed remarkably well-ordered and free of the ‘enthusiasm’ and ‘human machinery’ of earlier ‘ingatherings’. By the end of annus mirabilis each of the evangelical denominations could report huge accessions: of the largest bodies, the presbyterians (old and new schools) added almost thirty thousand members by examination, the major baptist churches baptised almost one hundred thousand new members, while the two main branches of methodism reported a staggering net increase of nearly one hundred and eighty thousand, a growth of sixteen per cent over the previous year. What had moved Americans to flock to revival meetings and ‘get religion‘ in these numbers?

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 15: Religious Motivation Biographical and Sociological Problems for the Church Historian , 1978 , pp. 393 - 406
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1978

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References

1 There is no definitive study of the revival of 1857-8. The most helpful treatment is provided by Smith, [Timothy L.], [Revivalism and Social Reform: American Protestantism on the Eve of the Civil War] (New York 1965) pp 63–79 Google Scholar. McLoughlin, William G., Jr, Modern Revivalism: Charles Grandison Finney to Billy Graham (New York 1959) pp 163-4 is too dismissiveGoogle Scholar. See also Francis, Russell E., ‘Pentecost: 1858. A Study in Religious Revivalism’, unpublished PhD thesis (University of Pennsylvania 1948) and Spicer, [Carl L.], [‘The Great Awakening of 1857 and 1858’], unpublished PhD thesis (Ohio State University 1935)Google Scholar.

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6 CAJ 19 June, 30 October 1856, 19 November 1857; SCA 14 May 1857.

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14 MEC (1857-1858).

15 CAJ II and 25 March, 22 April 1858.

16 Ibid 11 February, 4 March 1858.

17 Ibid 14 January, 25 March 1858.

18 NYO 27 May 1858.

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24 NYO 29 October, 24 December 1857.

25 Ibid 19 March, 24 December 1857; CAJ 2 July, 15 October, 12 November 1857; James W. Alexander, ‘The Merchant’s Clerk Cheered and Counselled’, p 20, in Man of Business; SCA 24 December 1857.

26 NYO 29 July 1858.

27 Patterson p 8.

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30 CAJ 21 January 1858.

31 Spicer pp 102-3.

32 NYO 11 June 1857.

33 CAJ 10 July, 7 and 21 August, 6 November 1856, 22 January, 10 September 1857.

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35 NYO 12 and 19 March, 2, 9 and 30 April, 21 May, 11 June, 2 July 1857; CAJ 11 June, 3 December 1857; Griffin, Clifford S., ‘The Abolitionists and the Benevolent Societies, 1831-1861’, Journal of Negro History 44 no 3 (Washington, D.C., 1959) pp 195–216.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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37 Ibid 7 January, 4 February 1858; NYO 3 and 24 June, 1 July, 5 August 1858; SCA 13 May 1858.

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42 Ibid 2 and 16 October 1856.

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45 Ibid 6 and 13 November, 11 December 1856, 5 February 1857, 20 December 1860; SCA 23 October 1856.

46 Philadelphia Press 6 March 1858, quoted in Francis, ‘Philadelphia’, p 64.

47 NYO 6 May 1858.

48 Van Deburg, William L., ‘William Lloyd Garrison and the “Pro-Slavery Priesthood”: The Changing Beliefs of an Evangelical Reformer, 1830-1840’, Journal of the American Academy of Religion 43 (Tallahassee 1975) p 235n.Google Scholar

49 CAJ 4 February 1858.

50 Spicer, appendix B; NYO 15 April 1858.

51 NYO 26 August 1858.

52 SCA 21 May, 3 September, 8 October 1857.

53 Ibid 15 January, 27 August, 10 September 1857.

54 Firmey, Charles G., Memoirs (New York 1876) p 444.Google Scholar

55 SCA 10 September 1857.

56 NYO 10 January 1856.

57 ‘Protestant Revivab and Catholic Retreats’, Brownson’s Quarterly Review 15 (New York 1858) pp 289–322 Google Scholar.

58 CAJ 8 January, 27 August 1857, 4 February 1858.

59 Ibid 3 and 31 January, 7 February 1856, 18 June 1857.

60 Ibid 5 November 1857.

61 Ibid 15 May 1856, 2 April 1857.

62 See, for example, CAJ 14 January, 18 February, 4 March 1858; NYO 1 April, 23 September 1858; SCA 15 July 1858.

63 CAJ 22 April 1858; SCA 17June, isjuly, 14 October 1858; NYO 5 August 1858.

64 Smith pp 1S4-62.

65 SCA 25 March, 26 August 1858.

66 Smith pp 64-5.

67 CAJ 1 and 15 April 1858.

68 NYO 19 August 1858. See also Conant pp 376, 380.

69 SCA 23 and 30 September 1858; NYO 11 March 1858.