THL 5990: Religion Along the American Frontier
Mondays and Wednesdays, 1:30-2:45
Spring 2009
Professor Kathleen Holscher
kathleen.holscher@villanova.edu
Phone: 9-4659
Office: Saint Augustine Center 227
Office Hours: Tuesdays 12:30-3:30, and by appointment
Course Description:
This course takes as its focus the religious peoples and practices that populated the western
extremities of the United States during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—a
geography and a period known in the American popular imagination as the “Old West.” That
said, we will forego the concept of the American West and instead revive (and revise) the more
useful historical model of the frontier. Following the definition proposed by historian David
Weber, we will study the frontier as a “[zone] of interaction between [..] cultures—[a place]
where the cultures of the invader and of the invaded contend with one another and with their
physical environment to produce a dynamic that is unique to time and place” (Weber, Spanish
Frontier 11). In the course, we will spend time learning about the various peoples—Latinos,
Native Americans and Anglo-Americans among them—that emerged as players in the frontier
experience. We will examine how each group developed religious ideas and practices in relation
to the distinct landscape (both geographic and ideological) it found along the frontier. The
course will highlight the range of religious encounters between these cultures, both along the
shifting political borders between the U.S. and Mexico, and between the U.S. and various Native
American tribes. We will also consider religious communities like the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter Day Saints (the Mormons)-- for whom the imagined frontier, and members’ actual, lived
experiences thereon, played central roles in the formation of collective religious identity. In
addition, we will consider non-denominational American interpretations of the frontier as
intimately tied to the religious destiny of the entire nation. Finally, the course will orient itself
around a set of questions, about the dynamic processes that constitute religious life on frontiers,
about the consequences settling upon a religiously mapped landscape, and about the challenges
historians face in telling the story of a territory that is contested, especially when religion lies at
the center of those contests.
Expectations, Assignments and Grading:
All students are expected to attend class regularly and arrive promptly. Please let me know in
advance if you expect to be late or absent from a class. More than two unexplained absences, or
systematic and unexplained lateness, will result in the lowering of your participation grade (in
addition, first year students should follow the attendance policy set forth for them in the
Villanova University student handbook). Students are also expected to participate thoughtfully
in class activities and discussions.
Essays: Students will complete three essays throughout the course of the semester. Each essay
will be 5 pp. in length. Two essays will draw on readings assigned for the class, while one may
require a moderate amount of outside reading and/or research. Topics will be distributed two to
three weeks before each essay is due.
Final Exam: The final exam will be an open book, take home exam, and will be cumulative (in
other words, it will cover readings and class content from the entire course). It will be
distributed on the final day of classes, and must be completed and submitted in hard copy to my
office by 4:00 PM on the following Wednesday. Please note that the exam (like any exam) is not
a collaborative effort—each student should complete the exam privately, and refrain from
sharing their work with other students.
Reading Responses: Students must complete weekly reading responses over the course of the
semester. Each response should directly address one or more reading assignments. For each
response, the student should take a few sentences to articulate at least one informed opinion
about themes or topics broached in the assigned reading(s), and at least one question inspired by
the reading. Each response can be either typed or (legibly) handwritten. Responses must be
turned in during the class for which the reading in question was assigned, and only one response
may be turned in per week. Do not write responses for weeks 1 or 14. Ten responses are
required for the semester; additional responses will count toward extra credit for the course.
Students are also encouraged to raise questions or concerns they have, about reading assignments
or lecture content, either in class or during office hours.
Breakdown of Grading:
Three essays
Final Exam
Reading responses (10 x 1%)
Attendance and Participation
Grading Scale:
100-95: A
94-90: A89-86: B+
85-82: B
81-78: B77-75: C+
74-72: C
71-69: C68-65: D+
65-62: D
62-60: DBelow 60: F
15% each
30%
10%
15%
All materials written by students for this course (and all courses at Villanova) must adhere to the
university’s code of academic integrity. To learn about plagiarism and other issues of academic
integrity visit http://library.villanova.edu/Help/AcademicIntegrity . From this website you can
link to Villanova’s integrity code, as well as several helpful educational resources. If you have
any questions at all about proper documentation, and other techniques to assure you avoid
plagiarism, please don’t hesitate to see me.
Students with Disabilities:
Students with disabilities who require academic accommodations should meet to discuss
specifics with me. It is the policy of Villanova University to make reasonable academic
accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities. To receive accommodations, you
must present verification, and to do this you must register with the Learning Support Office by
contacting the office at 610-519-5636 or at nancy.mott@villanova.edu.
Required Texts:
Books for this course are available in the UShop in Kennedy Hall.
Richard Etulain. Does the Frontier Experience Make America Exceptional? Bedford / St.
Martins, 1999.
Linda Gordon. The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction. Harvard University Press, 2001.
Joel Martin. The Land Looks After Us. Oxford University Press, 2001.
W. Paul Reeve. Making Space on the Western Frontier. University of Illinois Press, 2007.
David Weber. The Spanish Frontier in North America. Yale University Press, 1994.
All other readings for the course are available either through e-reserve (the e-reserve folder is
located on the course’s blackboard homepage).
Weekly Outline:
Part I: Background, Questions, Themes
Week 1: The “West” in American Religious History
January 12th:
Introductory materials;
“frontier,” Oxford English Dictionary (handout).
January 15th:
Edwin Gaustad and Leigh Schmidt, The Religious History of America, Ch. 8
Week 2: The Frontier as an Interpretive Model
January 19th:
No Class
January 21st:
Frederick Jackson Turner, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History” and Patricia
Nelson Limrick, from “Western History: Why the Past May be Changing,” Richard Etulain, ed.,
Does the Frontier Experience Make America Exceptional?, 17-43, 108-13.
Part II: The Spanish Frontier
Week 3: Religion on the Spanish Frontier: Encounters
January 26th:
Joel Martin, The Land Looks After Us, 5-29.
January 28th:
David Weber, The Spanish Frontier in North America, 1-29, 92-121;
“First Encounters,” Presente!: U.S. Latino Catholics from Colonial Origins to the Present
(Timothy Matovina, Gerald Eugene Povo, eds.), 9-14
Week 4: Religion on the Spanish Frontier: Mission Era Life
February 2nd:
Weber 122-146;
Ramon Gutierrez, from When Jesus Came the Corn Mothers Went Away, 39-94;
“Testimony on Indian Rebellion in New Mexico, 1681;” “Bishop’s Concerns About Language in
New Mexico, 1760;” “Guideline for a Texas Mission;” “Good Friday Service in Santa Fe, New
Mexico,” Presente! 14-17, 22-23, 25-27, 32-35.
February 4th:
“Inauguration of the Church at Mission Santa Clara,” “Accounts of Mission Life in California,”
Presente! 23-25, 37-43;
George Tinker, Missionary Conquests, 42-69;
Excerpts from The Life of Fray Junipero Serra (handout).
Part III: American Perceptions of the Frontier: Religious Promise, Religious Threat
Week 5: Religious Promise and Progress
February 9th:
Jonathan Edwards, “The Latter Day Glory Is Probably to Begin in America.”
February 11th:
Conrad Cherry, “Westward the Course of Destiny” and Lyman Beecher, “A Plea for the West,”
God’s New Israel: Religious Interpretations of American Destiny (Conrad Cherry, ed.), 51-60,
113-130;
Walt Whitman, “Passage to India” (handout).
Week 6: Protestant Anxiety and Home Missions
February 16th:
Horace Bushnell, “Barbarism, The First Danger” (full text available for reading or download at
www.books.google.com);
Laurie Maffly-Kipp, “The Moral World of the Califonia Miner,” Religion and Society in
Frontier California, 110-47.
February 18th: *first essay due*
Maffly-Kipp, “Engaging Habits and Besotted Idolatry,” Material Religion 1.1 (2005) 72.
Part IV: Mormons
Week 7: The Mormon Zion
February 23rd:
Reeve, Making Space on the Western Frontier, 1-32;
Shipps, “History as Text,” Mormonism 41-65.
February 25th:
Reeve, 33-62;
Mary Ann Hafen, “Pioneer Life in Southern Utah;”
Brigham Young, “Discourses” (handout).
--Spring Break—
Week 8: Mormon Encounters and Conflict
Marth 9th:
Reeve 63-112.
March 11th:
Reeve 113-56.
Part V: American Indians
Week 9: Indian Missions and Christianization
March 16th:
Martin 61-83;
Henry Warner Bowden, American Indians and Christian Missions, 164-97.
March 18th:
Charles A. Eastman, “From the Deep Woods to Civilization” and Gertrude Bonnin (Zitkala Sa)
“Impressions of an Indian Childhood,” Native American Autobiography: An Anthology (ed.
Arnold Krupat), 258-97.
Week 10: Messianic Movements
March 23rd:
Martin 84-113.
March 25th: *second essay due*
James Mooney, The Ghost Dance Religion and Wounded Knee, 777-83, 915-27.
Part VI: Catholics and Borderlands
Week 11: Catholic Expansion
March 30th:
Josiah Strong, Our Country, 13-18, 27-40, 59-88.
April 1st:
Sister Blandina Segal, At the End of the Santa Fe Trail (selections).
Week 12: Religious and Ethnic Borderlands
April 6th:
James S. Griffith, Folk Saints of the Borderlands, 21-41;
Paul Vanderwood, “Criminals and Saints,” Juan Soldado 201-48.
April 8th:
Linda Gordon, The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction, 1-79.
Week 13: Religious Practice on the Borderlands
April 13th:
No Class
April 15th:
Gordon 80-208, 246-253, 275-313.
Part VII: Conclusions
Week 14: New Religions on the Frontier
April 20th:
Movie Screening: Waco: The Rules of Engagement (1997)
April 22nd:
Waco: The Rules of Engagement (cont.)
Week 15: Final Thoughts
April 27:
Etulain 121-26;
Laurie Maffly-Kipp, “Eastward Ho! American Religion from the Perspective of the Pacific
Rim,” Retelling U.S. Religious History (Thomas Tweed, ed.), 127-48.
April 29: *third essay due*
Wrap-Up