Cited by 121Religion and Society InteractionsAmerican Constitutional Law and PoliticsReformation and Early Modern Christianity

The Second Great Awakening as an Organizing Process, 1780-1830: An Hypothesis

Mathews, Donald G.·1969·American Quarterly

Abstract

eralizations which American historians use every now and again to describe a movement whose complexity eludes precision. The term usually includes monumental changes such as the break-up of Calvinism, an event which, like the thawing of northern rivers in the spring, heralded a new burst of creativity, energy and warmth. The Awakening is also understood as a conservative assertion of a new mode of religious authority by ministers who, fearful of losing their traditional role in New England society, tried to tame the rising democracy. It provided new channels not only for social control, but also for social service which some scholars have said was but a manifestation of the former. It burned in white-hot emotionalism in Kentucky, spreading along the frontier like a prairie fire, sweeping even beyond the backfires set by cautious seaboard ecclesiastics who had hoped to control it. It was an expansion of religious feeling unknown in American history. To be able to say so much about the Awakening might be taken as evidence that it is not such a vague term after all. Yet there are too many unsettling things about the literature relating to it to conclude that present interpretations are sufficiently comprehensive. The difficulties are a mixture of too much emphasis upon the truly intricate and challenging intellectual problems of the New England theology, and a certain awesome impressionability in regard to the non-rational phenomena of revivalism in the burned-over districts of New York and Vermont, and the campmeeting grounds of the South and West. In fact, it is emotionalism and devout piety, heart over reason, commitment as opposed to disinterestedness which characterizes the revival for many scholars. And it is its impact upon Congregationalist-Presbyterian dogmas of inability which invites the scrutiny of intellectual historians who quite rightly

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.2307/2710771

Cites

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Mathews, D. G.
Corresponding author
Mathews, Donald G.
Venue
American Quarterly
Publisher
JSTOR
Published
1969
Volume
21
Issue
1
Pages
23
ISSN
0003-0678 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2327444773
Cited by
121
References
0
Citations by year
2025: 1 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 5 · 2018: 2 · 2017: 1 · 2016: 1 · 2015: 2 · 2014: 5 · 2013: 4 · 2012: 3
FWCI
3.11
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Locations
American Quarterly (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Religion and Society Interactions
  • Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › American Constitutional Law and Politics
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History › Reformation and Early Modern Christianity
Keywords
Second Great Awakening, religious revival, religious organizations, New England theology, Reformed theology, emotionalism, piety, Congregationalism, Presbyterianism, social control, religion and democracy, frontier religion, camp meetings

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review