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June 15-21, 1995
[All posts crossposted from H-AMREL <h-amrel@msu.edu>, H-NET's AMeircan Religious History Discussion List, moderated by Rick Dyson <DYSONF@scholar.wabash.edu>]
(1)
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 1995 13:23:13 -0500
From: Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp <maffly@email.unc.edu>
The frontier is a big place with many religions, and I don't know exactly which part of it you had in mind, but there have been a number of interesting studies in the past ten years that might help you. At the risk of sounding immodest, I would suggest that you consult the bibliography in my study of nineteenth-century California, "Religion and Society on the California Frontier." Although that particular frontier may not be what you are after, I do cite much of the scholarship from the 1980s and early 1990s that addresses the subject of Protestantism on various frontiers. D. Michael Quinn has an essay in "Under an Open Sky," a collection of essays on the new western history edited by William Cronon, George Miles, and Jay Gitlin, that cites many useful sources and covers non-Protestant religions. The recent "Oxford Dictionary of the American West," ed. Clyde Milner et al., has an essay on religion by Ferenc and Margaret Szasz, two scholars that have written a number of works on religion in the American West. Richard Etulain has compiled a bibliography, "The American West in the twentieth century," (University of Oklahoma Press, 1994) that contains a section on religion.
I would start with those. And I would be happy to steer you in other directions if you can say more about your specific interests. Scholarship is spotty and highly variable by region, but an increasing amount of it is quite good and historically important.
Hope this helps.
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
<Maffly@email.unc.edu>
(2)
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 1995 14:11:50 -0600 (CST) From: Conrad Cherry <IBDD100@INDYCMS.IUPUI.EDU>
Professor Davis,
As a starter you may want to read Laurie Maffly-Kipp's RELIGION AND SOCIETY IN FRONTIER CALIFORNIA (Yale Press, 1994). Good reading!
Conrad Cherry
IUPUI
<IBDD100@INDYCMS.IUPUI.EDU>
(3)
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 1995 15:59:02 -0500
From: E. Brooks Holifield <eholifi@emory.edu>
Professor Davis:
In addition to the book by Laurie Maffly-Kipp that Conrad Cherry mentioned, you might want to look at an older book by T. Scott Miyakawa, _Protestants and Pioneers_ (Chicago, 1964); the essay by Linda Pritchard, "The Spirit and the Flesh: Religion and Regional Economic Development," in Philip R. Vandermeer and Robert P. Swierenga, eds., _Belief and Behavior: Essays in the New Religious History_ (New Brunswick: Rutgers, 1991, might be useful for you. You might also look at Ferenc Szasz, _The Protestant Clergy in the Great Plains and Mountain West_(1988).
Brooks Holifield,
Emory University
(4)
Date: Sat, 17 Jun 1995 06:14:00 -0600 (CST) From: Stephen L. Longenecker <slongene@bridgewater.edu>
For the frontier east of the Mississippi, I like Stephen Marini's Radical Sects of Revolutionary New England. He points out that northern New England, the upcountry, was the new nation's first frontier.
Jon Butler's Power, Authority, and the Origins of American Denominational Order: The English Churches in the Delaware Valley explores the impact of institutional maturity on frontier religion.
And, of course, we all like our own work, so let me suggest my book, Piety and Tolerance: Pennsylvania German Religion, 1700-1850, which includes a discussion of denominational organization and the shortage of clergy on the Pennsylvania frontier.
Steve Longenecker
Bridgewater College
<slongene@bridgewater.edu>
(5)
> Date: Mon, 19 Jun 1995 08:37:36 -0600 (CST) > From: Jon Butler <jbutler@minerva.cis.yale.edu>
Religion on the frontier isn't quite the same as religion in the "west," but if one can work off a stereotype, below are some titles that may be of interest. These are works that used the "survey" method developed between the 1890s and the 1920s and applied it to various places that might be considered "frontier-like" (apologies to those who find this pejorative; it's not meant to be). Many were the work of the Institute of Social and Religious Research, which conducted many, many such "survey" studies and whose work is largely forgotten nowadays. They're scarcely without flaw, but anyone interested in the topic -- either religion on the frontier or early religiou surveys -- might find them interesting. I have a much longer list of works on survey s that I would be happy to share if anyone is interested.
Henry F. Atkinson, The Church and Industrial Warfare: A Report on the Labor Troubles in Colorado (New York, 1920)
Edmund de Schweinitz Brunner, A church and community survey of Pend Oreille County, Washington. Vol. 2, Unique studies of rural America; town and country series (New York, 1922)
Edmund de Schweinitz Brunner, Churches of Distinction in Town and Country, ([New York?],1923)
Edmund de Schweinitz Brunner, Marjorie Patten, and Gwendolyn Salisbury Hughes, American agricultural villages (New York, 1927)
College Woman's Club (San Diego, Calif.), Pathfinder social survey of San Diego. . . Report of limited investigations of social conditions in San Diego, California, under direction of the College Woman's Club (San Diego, 1914)
Robert S. Donaldson, The Church in Greater San Francisco: A Study in Church Efficiency (New York, 1921)
E. F. Eastman, and A. T. Boisen, Rural Survey in Missouri, edited by W. H. Wilson (New York, 1912)
Fred Eastman, A rural survey in Kentucky, made by the Department of church and country life of the Board of home missions of the Presbyterian church in the U. S. A. ... (New York, 1912)
R. A. Felton, Country Churches of Distinction, edited by W. H. Wilson (New York, 1913)
C. Luther Fry, Diagnosing the Rural Church: A Study in Method (New York, 1924)
Charles O. Gill and Gifford Pinchot, The Country Church: the Decline of Its Influence and the Remedy [Tomkins Co., N. Y. and Windsor Co., Vt.] (New York, 1913)
William Benjamin Hamilton, A social survey of Austin (Austin, Tex., 1913)
B. F. Lamb, et al., Survey Reports of Churches and Communities with Tentative Suggestions on Each of the Counties in Ohio (Columbus, Ohio, 1920)
Benson Y. Landis, A Church and Community Survey of Sedgwick County [Kansas] (New York, 1922)
Benson Y. Landis, Rural Church Life in the Middle West as Illustrated by Clay County, Iowa, and Jennings County, Indiana, with Comparative Data from Studies of 35 Middle Western Counties (New York, 1922)
H. N. Morse and Edmund deS. Brunner, The Town and Country Church in the United States, 2nd ed (New York, 1925)
Church in the U.S.A. Board of Home Missions. Dept. of Church and Country Life Presbyterian, A rural survey in Missouri, made by the Department of church and country life of the Board of home missions of the Presbyterian church in the U.S.A. ... (New York)
Martha Robinson, Church and Community Survey in Jennings County [Indiana] (New York, 1920)
Jon Butler
Yale University
<jbutler@minerva.cis.yale.edu>
(6) ***H-WEST****
> Date: Wed, 21 Jun 1995 08:21:07 -0500 (CDT) > From: Elliott West <ewest@comp.uark.edu>
One good starting place for any study of religion on the frontier (and in the West) is an excellent bibliography: _Religion in the Twentieth-Century American West_, complied by Richard Etulain. It was produced by the Center for the American West at the University of New Mexico in 1991 and as far as I know is still available from them. It is organized by general religious groupings (Roman Catholics, Mainline Protestants, Jews, etc.) and also has sections on ethnicity and religion, cults, women and religion, Native American religion, and others. The Center is at the Department of History at UNM.
Elliott West
University of Arkansas
<ewest@comp.uark.edu>
(7) ***H-WEST****
> Date: Wed, 21 Jun 1995 17:28:51 -0400 (EDT) > From: Ron Helfrich <RH4754@ALBNYVMS.BITNET>
Just wanted to throw my two-cents worth in concerning Religion in the US West.
There was a book, whose editors I cannot recall, entitled _Religion in the American West_, I think, and published by the University Press of America. It contains a number of very interesting essays ranging from Jews in the West to recent New Age movements.
Another very interesting book, again whose author I cannot recall, began life as a doctoral dissertation at UNM (I think) and discusses Presbyterian/Natives and Presbyterian/LDS interactions in the Southwest. It is published by UIllinois.
The literature on the LDS is voluminous. Suffice it to point to Arrington's _Great Basin Kingdom_ for starters. It has recently been reprinted by Utah State University Press.
For comparative buffs, one might want to look at Smilie's (sic?) collection, _Builiding the New Jerusalem_, which deals with the attempts of religious groups to build Zion in the Canadian West. Friesen's _The Canadian Prairie_ has a bit on religion while the collection, _Amazing Grace_, edited by Rawlyk et. al., contains a chapter on evangelicalism in BC.
Ron Helfrich
Department of History
University at Albany
Albany, NY 12222-1952
<rh4754@cnsvax.albany.edu>
Is it Albany or Albania?
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