GREAT AWAKENINGS IN VIRGINIA & ROCHESTER.   Term Paper ID:26846 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Examines sociocultural realities of Virginia (18th Cent.) & Rochester, NY (19th Cent.), focusing on evagelical, revival movements.... More...

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Paper Abstract: Examines sociocultural realities of Virginia (18th Cent.) & Rochester, NY (19th Cent.), focusing on evagelical, revival movements. Paper Introduction: The Great Awakenings in Virginia and Rochester American religious history has been marked by recurrent episodes of Protestant revivalism, some local, some widespread. Two of the later, in the first halves of the 18th and 19th centuries respectively, were so widespread as to have been given historical names, the First and Second Great Awakenings. (Some present-day evangelicals speak of a Third Great Awakening in recent times.) The social conditions surrounding the spread of the first two Great Awakenings varied widely from region to region. This essay concerns the circumstances of the first in Virginia and the second in Rochester, New York; it will be found that the wave of revivalism in Virginia is more difficult to Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. Indeed, although Isaac presents a very richly textured picture oflife in 18th-century Virginia -- on a purely literary level, the bookrichly deserves its Pulitzer Prize -- at its heart is a mystery: It is notat the end clear why evangelicalism took hold in Virginia. (Black slaves, according to Isaac, lived a more communal life,but still subject to the same geographic dispersion.) All households were not equal, however; they varied in the extent ofland and number of slaves, and therefore in wealth. A Shopkeeper's Millennium: Society andRevivals in Rochester, New York, 1815-1837. Tobaccocould be shipped directly from plantations, so there was little growth oftowns as transshipment points. Eventhough its economy was closely bound up with commerce, specifically thetobacco trade, the geography lent itself to easy water transport. Working conditions on the job came to be much more regimentedin the new system, but the other side of the coin was that workers' liveswere no longer exposed to the owner's supervision outside of work hours(pp. The established religion of this society was Anglican (in modernterms, Episcopalian). All this was changing about 183 , toward an arrangement morefamiliar to us. It grew dramaticallywith the evangelical movement, church membership increasing by a third inthe single year 1831 (p. The population of Virginia was growing rapidly (p. (1978). Evangelicalism, according to Johnson,proved a more effective means of social control than had temperancepersuasion or even mandatory Sunday-closing laws. Isaac takes note of this, yet stillconveys the sense of a society that seems to have been long in place. ReferencesIsaac, Rhys (1982). Two of the later, inthe first halves of the 18th and 19th centuries respectively, were sowidespread as to have been given historical names, the First and SecondGreat Awakenings. It retained close links to the surrounding ruralcountryside -- in contrast to earlier American cities, which were allseaports -- but it was growing into a city, and specifically amanufacturing city, with industries driven by the ready access to waterpower from the Genesee River. At least for white Virginians, then,society was a world of households that came together only on publicoccasions. 57-58; 98-99). Colonial Virginia, as presented by Rhys Isaac in The Transformationof Virginia, was an almost purely rural society, and remained suchthroughout the late colonial period that is the focus of his study. Between 1821 and 1839 its population grew from 1,5 to some3 , (pp. We may now turn back almost a century to the rise of evangelicalismin Virginia. A few years later, though, inthe early 183 s, evangelicalism spread explosively through the middle class-- substantially through the influence of women, who now were "housewifes"separated from their husbands' work lives (pp. The Great Awakenings in Virginia and Rochester American religious history has been marked by recurrent episodes ofProtestant revivalism, some local, some widespread. Notably, the revivalwas strongest among manufacturers; members of the middle class whose tradeswere mainly mercantile ware far less involved (pp. Whiskey was not, and we must ask how liquor became a problem" (p.55). It is hard to imagine, however, that something as emotional asevangelicalism could have spread simply as a means of social control, andJohnson suggests that this was not the case; that proprietor-churchgoerswere initially motivated largely by their sense of having abandoned theirown traditional responsibilities toward employees. An initial temperance crusade, based on example, failed to work;liquor vanished from the lives of much of the middle class, but the newworking class did not follow their example. Previously evenmanufacturing was conducted largely as a form of household economy. In thesefigures, Johnson finds a sense of guilt for old responsibilities andauthority that had been abandoned in the previous decade. One mayspeculate that it was due to discontent among the humbler whites with anemerging class structure, but Isaac is almost at pains to de-emphasize thispossible line of argument. Indeed, Isaac suggests that we find early ona distinction between white converts' emphasis on the salvation of theindividual and that of black converts on the salvation of the community (p.172) -- roughly, the difference between the faith of Billy Graham and thatof Martin Luther King. Inspite of its dramatic impact in the 183 s, then, the revival seems not tohave left an enduring mark on the region, whereas the Southern revivalevidently did. 137). Johnson emphasizes in A Shopkeeper'sMillennium, Rochester was in the early 19th century a country villagegrowing rapidly into a sizable town, especially after the opening of theErie Canal. Previously,though there were a number of Protestant denominations in Rochester,churchgoing had not been particularly widespread. Beyond this mystery lies another one, not explicitly addressed ineither book. Indeed,Isaac speculates at one point that evangelicalism spread in part as a sortof quiet protest against the gentry-led patriot movement (p. Its spread was largely among the humble, including slaves; writersfrom the gentry spoke with disparagement of the low-class worshippers, andespecially of the evangelists, seen as ignorant "enthusiasts" (i.e.,fanatics), in contrast to the educated if not conspicuously spiritualAnglican clergy (pp. The Transformation of Virginia, 174 -179 . 17-18). 149-5 ). Isaac finds some links between the rise of evangelicalism in Virginiaand the emergence, not much later, of the patriot movement. 65; 68). Isaac goes slightly beyond his main period of emphasis to notethat, by the early 19th century, the former established church was indramatic decline. 16 note). Within a particular district, life as portrayed by Isaac has atimeless flavor, as though conditions had remained largely unchanged forcenturies. In the long term of history, though, evangelicalism won the day inVirginia. Church properties were wrested away from the reorganizedEpiscopal Church, and many fell into ruin; one can infer that Anglicanreligious sentiment among the gentry was not strong enough to survive theend of official establishment. (Some present-day evangelicals speak of a Third GreatAwakening in recent times.) The social conditions surrounding the spreadof the first two Great Awakenings varied widely from region to region.This essay concerns the circumstances of the first in Virginia and thesecond in Rochester, New York; it will be found that the wave of revivalismin Virginia is more difficult to explain, even though it seems to have hada more durable result, at least in the religious beliefs of the regioninvolved. NewYork: W.W. His workers, journeymenand apprentices, lived there as well, and were regarded as part of thehousehold, with the master exercising a paternal authority over them. This breakdown of traditional hierarchy relationships seems closelybound to the abrupt emergence of "temperance" as a public-morality issue inthe late 182 s, with liquor blamed for all the social ills linked in moderntimes with drugs. As Johnson notes, "These sentiments were new in the late182 s. Incontrast, the Northeast as a whole is far less evangelical, and the regionaround Rochester is at least not known to be a conspicuous exception. Amaster shoemaker, say, lived adjacent to his shop. Itis notable that the modern word, "boss," was just coming into use for anemployer, supplanting the older "master" with its overtones of personalrank subordination (p. Rich and poor began to live in different neighborhoods. Among the slaves, he more readily finds anelement of communal identity. Proprietors and workers increasingly did not live wherethey worked, but "went to work" in the morning and back home at the end ofwork hours. Local society and politics were dominated by the gentry, and by theirpersonal ties to one another and to their humbler neighbors. Now, in the newseparation of classes, drinking was an unregulated working-class activity. However, noneof these links emerge as particularly strong. While one major patriotleader -- Patrick Henry -- was strongly religious, most were not. 1 2-1 6). Norton.Johnson, Paul E. Some proprietorsadvertised that they would only hire churchgoers; others gave formal orinformal preference to churchgoers. New York: Hill and Wang.----------------------- 8 Johnson is silent on the subsequent religious history ofRochester. Today the South as a whole -- so notably secular in colonialtimes, when compared with New England -- is most strongly marked byevangelical Christianity, and Virginia shares fully in this tendency. 4). The result, within aframework of household autonomy, was a hierarchical society, with thegentry receiving the deference of ordinary planters (a term which at thistime lacked the aristocratic connotations it has today; Isaac, p. 43-48). The answer he offers is that in the older social system drinking hadbeen a bond between classes, and "masters" had supervision over theirsubordinates' drinking as over the rest of their lives. 12), but thegrowth was outward, not toward greater density in already-settleddistricts. 42). The explosive growth of Rochester, by coincidence, took place just asthe nature of urban life was itself changing. The Church, however, was more a social institutionthan a spiritual one. 261); whilesome evangelicals raised militia units in the Revolution, others stoodaside as pacifists. Sundays were a social occasion, with seeing andbeing seen more prominent than the ritual service from the Book of CommonPrayer; within the household, grace was said at meals but there was littlesign of family prayer as such (pp. In contrast, as Paul E. Into this settled-seeming rural world, about 174 ,evangelical religion began to spread, brought by missionaries from thenorth. County courthouses and parish churches figured prominently in sociallife, but they were not surrounded by towns, and might be nearly desertedwhen court was not in session, or between Sundays. There is in fact a tension here, because in 174 the colony hadonly existed for four generations, and the rise of a local gentry was morerecent still -- still taking place, in fact, as through the tobaccoinspection acts of the 173 s (p. Even rural life was notclustered into villages, but spread out among individual householdfarmsteads, themselves not compact. 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