And They All Sang Hallelujah: Plain-Folk Camp-Meeting Religion, 1800-1845 - Softcover

Bruce Jr., Dickson D.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0870493108 ISBN 13: 9780870493102

Publisher: University of Tennessee Press, 1981

Synopsis

Winner of the James Mooney Award from the Southern Anthropological Society.
For many years, the camp-meeting religion that flourished along the American frontier in the nineteenth century was seen from rather narrow perspectives. To many scholars, the camp-meetings were mainly a social outlet on which was imposed a thin veneer of religion. Others, viewing the annual gatherings as dawn-to-dusk shouting, emphasized emotionalism to the exclusion of religious convictions. Still other misconceptions arose from lack of understanding of this unique southern phenomenon: that the camp-meetings were largely unplanned and varied markedly from place to place; that they were dominated by the traditional Methodist and Baptist versions of Christianity; that they were officially approved by these or other denominations; and that the camp-meetings were "transplants" that grew vigorously on soil already widely cultivated for religion.
Professor Dickson D. Bruce Jr. here presents a challenging reinterpretation of the subject. Eschewing any single, simplistic view, he combines approaches from history, social anthropology, and folklore to see more clearly camp-meeting religion itself and the camp-meeting as a part of antebellum southern life. In so doing, he provided a model for many future studies.

About this title

About the Author

Dickson "Dave" Davies Bruce Jr. (1946–2014) was a professor of history professor at the University of California at Irvine for more than thirty-five years. He also served as Associate Dean of Graduate Studies and as Director of the Program in Comparative Cultures at UC Irvine. His research focused on the cultural and intellectual history of African Americans.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Tennessee Press
• Publication date: 1981
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0870493108
• ISBN 13: 9780870493102
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 172