American Society and Culture
U.S. History 1
Colonial Religion
• Puritan Colonies
– New England
• Non-Denomiational Middle Colonies
– But strong Quaker influence in Penn. and N.J.
• Catholic Colonies
– Md., and Spanish/French regions
• Anglican Colonies
– The South
Puritan Religion in Massachusetts
• In every town, the community church had
"complete liberty to stand alone,"
– Not bound to Anglican hierarchy or ritual
• Each congregation chose its own minister and
regulated its own affairs—Congregational church
• Ministers worked closely with government
– Ministers had no formal political power, but exerted
great influence on church members
• Only church members could hold government office
– Government protected the ministers, taxed members and
non-members alike to support the church, and enforced
the law requiring attendance at services
Roger Williams
• Williams a controversial young Puritan minister
– a Separatist
– proclaimed that the land the colonists occupied
belonged to the natives
– advocated sexual equality
• Colonial government considered Williams a
dangerous man and voted to deport him
– escaped before they could send him back to England
• 1635-1636, he took refuge with the Narragansetts
– 1636, he bought a tract of land from them, and with a
few followers, created the town of Providence
Rhode Island
• Williams advocated complete freedom of worship
and denied government any authority over
religious practice.
• 1644, he obtained a charter from Parliament
empowering him to establish a single government
for the various settlements around Providence
– Rhode Island
• Based government on the Mass. pattern, but did
not restrict the vote to church members nor tax the
people for church support.
• For a time, Rhode Island was the only colony in
which all faiths (including Judaism) could worship
without interference.
Anne Hutchinson
• Emigrated to Mass. in 1634
• 1635, began to hold Sunday
prayer discussions after church
• argued that all persons could
be saved, not just the
“chosen”—antinomianism
• She was tried by the Church
and found guilty of heresy,
sedition and role reversal
• Told that, “You have rather
bine a Husband than a Wife,
and a Preacher than a Hearer,
and a Magistrate than a
subject.”
Connecticut
• 1635, Thomas Hooker, led his congregation out
of Mass. to establish the town of Hartford.
– 1639, Fundamental Orders of Connecticut established
• New Haven was established by Puritans upset
with what they considered the increasing religious
laxity in Massachusetts.
– Fundamental Articles of New Haven (1639) established
a Bible-based government even stricter than that of
Massachusetts Bay.
• New Haven remained independent until 1662,
when it came under the control of the Hartford
colony, renamed Connecticut
Crises in Puritan New England
• Puritan (or Congregational) churches
suffered a number of crises in late-17th c.
– Declining church membership
• Halfway Covenant
– Lack of doctrinal conformity
• Church synods in Mass.
– Opposition to established status
– Salem Witch Trials
Religion in the Middle Colonies
• No established church dominated in the
Middle Colonies
– Diverse population and doctrines of religious
toleration allowed many denominations
• 1750, region had more congregations per
capita than any other colonial region, even
New England
The Quaker Colonies
• Pennsylvania was born out of the efforts of The
Society of Friends to find a home
• William Penn, the son of a British admiral, and a
landlord of Irish estates, was the patron
– Converted to Quakerism, Penn became an evangelist,
was sent repeatedly to prison, and became convinced of
the need of a Quaker colony
• In 1681, after the death of his father, he inherited
his father’s lands and also his father's claim to a
large debt from the king.
– Charles II paid the debt with a grant of territory
• Penn was both landlord and ruler of the colony
Religion in the Southern Colonies
• Anglicanism the established religion in all S. colonies
– Had official government sanction, and public funds paid the
clergy
– Those not members of the Anglican Church were labeled as
“dissenters”
• Problems for the Anglican church in the South
– Shortage of trained clergy
– Lack of leadership
• no Anglican bishop in N. America
– Parishes that were vast and sparsely settled.
– Frontier regions often lacked Anglican churches
• A breeding ground for “dissenting” sects
Catholicism in the Colonies
• French and Spanish influence
– Louisiana, Florida and New Mexico
– Conversion of the Indians
• Maryland and Pennsylvania had largest
Catholic populations in the English colonies
Maryland
• Maryland emerged from desire of English
Catholics to escape discrimination.
– The colony was the dream of George Calvert
• March 1634, two ships bearing about 300
passengers established the village of St. Mary's
• Calvert soon realized that Catholics would always
be a minority in the colony.
– “Act Concerning Religion,” (1649) assured freedom of
worship to all Maryland Christians
Denominationalism
• Most colonies had established churches
– But civil and ecclesiastical authorities had a difficult
time enforcing religious authority by 1700
• Denominationalism—the spread of competing
churches—arose in the colonies in the 18th century
– Baptists, Methodists, Moravians, Reformists,
Moravians, Lutherans all competed with established
churches for members
The First Great Awakening
• Transatlantic religious revival, which first touched
the Middle Colonies in the 1730s.
• George Whitfield—catalyst of Great Awakening
– English preacher who came to America in 1738.
– played on feelings of his audience—religious
emotionalism
– “Fire and Brimstone” sermons
– tent revivals
• Whitfield’s style copied by others
– Jonathan Edwards “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry
God”
Impact of the Great Awakening
• Divisions in American Protestantism
– “Old Lights”—opponents of Great Awakening
– “New Lights”—supporters of Great Awakening
• New Protestant sects created
– increased need for religious toleration in America
• Institutions of higher education created
– needed to develop an educated, “American” clergy
•
•
•
•
Empowered women
Introduced revivalism into American religion
Stressed egalitarianism
Influenced political behavior
Religion and the Revolution
• On the whole, the war and its revolutionary ideals
greatly weakened organized religion in the US
– emphasized reason over faith, individual over
communal, temporal over spiritual
• No sect suffered more than the Anglicans
– Revolutionary regimes disestablished state churches
and eliminated tax subsidies
– Anglicans had also benefited from aid from England,
which ceased with the outbreak of war.
– By end of the war ended, many Anglican parishes no
longer had clergymen
• Quakers were also weakened, as pacifism was
unpopular during the war
Catholicism and the Revolution
• War improved the position of the Catholic church
• On the advice of Charles Carroll, a Catholic
Maryland statesman, most American Catholics
supported the Patriot cause.
• The French alliance also did much to erode old
hostilities toward Catholics
• After the war the Vatican provided the United
States with its own Catholic hierarchy.
• Fr. John Carroll (of Maryland) was named head
of Catholic missions in America in 1784 and, in
1789, the first American bishop
Religious Freedom in the New Republic
• New states moved towards religious freedom after
the war
– Stripped established churches of their privileges
– No tax money for churches, ministers
– No more laws requiring church attendance
• although some laws still barred Catholics and atheists
• 1786, Virginia enacted the “Statute of Religious
Liberty,” which called for the complete separation
of church and state, and the right to worship as
one chose
• Religious toleration/freedom became U.S. law in
1791 with the passage of the 1st Amendment
Second Great Awakening
• Traditional religion staged a dramatic comeback in
the form of a wave of revivalism known as the
Second Great Awakening.
• Basic ideas of the Second Great Awakening were:
– Individuals must readmit God and Christ into their
daily lives
– must embrace a fervent, active piety
– must reject the skeptical rationalism that threatened
traditional beliefs
– Rejected predestination
– Social Gospel
The Mormons
Women in Early American Society
Seneca Falls Convention, 1848
• Women’s suffrage movement in U.S. dates from
1848 Women’s Rights Convention held at Seneca
Falls, New York
– Suffrage movement had its roots in the 19th century
reform movements for abolition, temperance, and
women’s rights
• Conference called by Elizabeth Cady Stanton
and Lucretia Mott
– 300 women and men, including Frederick Douglass,
attended the convention
The Great Awakening
• Transatlantic religious revival, which first touched the
Middle Colonies in the 1730s.
• George Whitfield—catalyst of Great Awakening
– English preacher who toured America in 1738.
– played on feelings of his audience—religious emotionalism
– tent revivals
• New England Awakening led by Jonathan Edwards
– Stressed personal conversion experiences
– “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”
The Great Awakening
• Great Awakening characterized by
– religious emotionalism
– “Fire and Brimstone” sermons
– individual religious experiences
– Revival meetings—often in tens or open fields
• removed formality, and class structure of established churches
– Acceptance of—even preference for—
untrained/uneducated clergy
• In the South, the appeal of the Great Awakening was very
much as a reaction against the Anglican hierarchy
– appealed to the lower classes
– Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians all benefited
Impact of the Great Awakening
• Divisions in American Protestantism
– “Old Lights”—opponents of Great Awakening
– “New Lights”—supporters of Great Awakening
• New Protestant sects created
– increased need for religious toleration in America
• Institutions of higher education created
– needed to develop an educated, “American” clergy
•
•
•
•
Empowered women
Introduced revivalism into American religion
Stressed egalitarianism
Influenced political behavior
Slave Religion
• Before Great Awakening, few American
slaves had been converted to Christianity
– Few owners were very religious
– Few slaves wanted to become Christian
• Most retained West African religious rites
– Owners feared conversion would spark rebellion
Afro-American Christianity
• Evangelical churches welcomed black members
– free and slave
•
•
•
•
•
African Americans influenced the new Christianity
Christianity an “Americanizing” institution for slaves
Christianity seen by masters as means to control slaves
Christianity also a means for slaves to resist
Black churches illegal in colonial South
Women and the 2nd Great Awakening
• Women converts outnumbered men 3:2
– Called by the converted to convert others
• Pushed women into roles outside their home
– Bible, missionary, charitable, and maternal societies;
Sunday school assns.
– Ministered to the poor, the sick, orphans, women in need
• Consciousness-raising experiences for women
– Gave them political savvy; political skills
– Public speaking, fund raising, lobbying for change;
organizing movements
Seneca Falls Convention, 1848
• Organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott
– 300 men and women attended conference on women’s rights
• “Declaration of Sentiments,” authored by Elizabeth
Cady Stanton presented to the convention
– Called for female equality before the law and the right to vote
– Protested the exclusion of women from higher ed., profitable employment,
the pulpit, & the professions
– Called for property rights and guardianship of their children
– Demanded an end to the sexual double standard
– Protested the psychological effects of the oppression of women on women
• Declaration received a lot of media attention
– most of it negative
– Exposed ideas of women’s right to larger audience
Declaration of Sentiments
• At the Seneca Falls Convention, Cady
Stanton issued the Declaration of
Sentiments, which called for:
–
–
–
–
Legal equality for women
Rights to property and wages
Access to education
Right to Vote