Evangelical Gotham : religion and the making of New York City, 1783-1860 / Kyle B. Roberts.

Author
Roberts, Kyle B. [Browse]
Format
Book
Language
English
Published/​Created
Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, [2016]
Description
338 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm.

Availability

Copies in the Library

Location Call Number Status Location Service Notes
Firestone Library - Stacks BV1642.U5 R63 2016 Browse related items Request

    Details

    Subject(s)
    Series
    Historical studies of urban America [More in this series]
    Summary note
    At first glance, evangelical and Gotham seem like an odd pair. What does a movement of pious converts and reformers have to do with a city notoriously full of temptation and sin? More than you might think, says Kyle B. Roberts, who argues that religion must be considered alongside immigration, commerce, and real estate scarcity as one of the forces that shaped the New York City we know today. In Evangelical Gotham, Roberts explores the role of the urban evangelical community in the development of New York between the American Revolution and the Civil War. As developers prepared to open new neighborhoods uptown, evangelicals stood ready to build meetinghouses. As the city's financial center emerged and solidified, evangelicals capitalized on the resultant wealth, technology, and resources to expand their missionary and benevolent causes. When they began to feel that the city's morals had degenerated, evangelicals turned to temperance, Sunday school, prayer meetings, antislavery causes, and urban missions to reform their neighbors. The result of these efforts was Evangelical Gotham, a complicated and contradictory world whose influence spread far beyond the shores of Manhattan. Winner of the 2015 Dixon Ryan Fox Manuscript Prize from the New York State Historical Association.
    Bibliographic references
    Includes bibliographical references and index.
    Contents
    • Introduction
    • 1783
    • 1815. Crossings and dwellings ; The widow, the missionary, and the prostitute
    • 1815
    • 1840. The new missionary field ; Practicing faith through reading and writing ; Free churches and the limits of reform
    • 1840
    • 1860. Perfection and the antebellum urban Evangelical woman ; Moving uptown
    • Conclusion.
    ISBN
    • 9780226388144 ((cloth ; : alk. paper))
    • 022638814X ((cloth ; : alk. paper))
    LCCN
    2016026514
    OCLC
    944086927
    Other standard number
    • 40026566758
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