RS151A: RELIGION IN AMERICAN HISTORY TO 1865

Professor Catherine L. Albanese TR, 9:30-10:45 am

Winter 2005 South Hall 1430

Course Description

This course surveys American religious history until 1865. We discover that, as early as its pre‑Civil‑War years, the United States was something like Noah's ark. It contained examples of numerous species of religion, even among indigenous dwellers in the land. That initial religious pluralism multiplied as the nation grew, and we trace its outlines from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century. At the same time, we find, in the pre‑Civil‑War period, the overwhelming predominance of certain forms of Protestant faith and practice. We examine the impact of the Protestant experience in the context of American history and culture and look for the mutual lines of influence between American Protestant Christianity and general American history and culture.

Course Texts

Bryan LeBeau, Religion in America to 1865 (New York University Press).

Reader (Grafikart, 6550 Pardall Road, Isla Vista). See class schedule below.

Undergraduate Course Requirements

A midterm examination (25 percent of course grade) will test your grasp of basic factual materials and ask related questions regarding reading and lectures for the first half of the course.

A final examination (25 percent of course grade) will again seek to determine your grasp of basic information and ask related questions concerning reading and lectures, this time for the second half of the course. The final is scheduled for Tuesday, March 15, from 9:00 to 11:00 am.

A research paper (50 percent of course grade) will also be a major course requirement. The paper should deal with a specific theme or topic concerning one religious group, denomination, or movement present in the United States before 1865 and should focus on its impact on general American history or the impact of general American history on the life of the religious formation—or both.

First, your paper should (ca. 4-5 pages) trace one theme or topic regarding the early history and development of the group, denomination, or movement in the United States until the time of the Civil War. (For example, good topics include the group’s theology or one theme in its theology; its ritual practice; its moral teaching—general or on one theme such as slavery or temperance; its general social practice and class interactions; its relationship to women or minorities; its official structure and leadership.)

Second, your paper should (ca. 4 pages) highlight either (1) the influences of the general culture on the religious body and theme about which you are writing, or (2) the influences of the religious body’s involvement with the specific theme/topic on the general culture. The paper should represent original research on your part, and it should also, as appropriate, synthesize lectures, readings, and personal insights concerning the relationship between the specific religious group or movement and American culture. In whatever way you approach the paper, the point is to produce a sustained and creative synthesis that represents your encounter with historical materials and your intellectual response to them.

Your paper should be 1,800 words in length (that is, at least 8 pages long, assuming that you print double-spaced in font-size 11 or 12 with one‑inch margins all around). Moreover, the paper you submit should be in exactly that format—double-spaced in font 11 or 12, with one‑inch margins all around. Be sure to number the pages!!! The paper should be carefully documented, with citations made in endnotes or footnotes (NOT parenthetical notes in the body of the paper). A bibliography of works consulted should also accompany each paper. The endnotes or footnotes and the bibliography should follow standard historical referencing format, as found in Kate L. Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, 6th ed. (University of Chicago Press). Papers are due on Tuesday of the last week of the quarter at class time (Tuesday, March 8). Late papers, if still acceptable, will be penalized.

Your paper will be graded as follows:

(1) clearly describes and narrates historical material regarding the group, denomination, or movement in the United States before 1865 (35 percent of paper grade);

(2) discusses the influence of the general culture on the religious body regarding the topic or of the religious body as per the topic on the general culture (20 percent of paper grade);

(3) produces a study that is approximately 1,800 words (about 8—but not more than 10—pages), printed double‑spaced in font size 11 or 12, with standard one‑inch margins all around (10 percent of paper grade);

(4) is appropriately documented with either footnotes or endnotes following the Turabian standard historical referencing format (NOT parentheses in the text) as specified above (15 percent of paper grade);

(5) includes a bibliography of sources consulted, again in the Turabian standard historical referencing format, which contains at least six or seven serious items, either university press or comparable books or scholarly journal articles (20 percent of paper grade).

Please also note the following:

(1) Papers without any notes or bibliography at all are considered incomplete and will be very seriously downgraded, if still acceptable.

(2) As a way of assisting you in the production of a successful paper, there will be occasions during the course of the quarter when you may—but are not required to—submit materials for informal evaluation. Items submitted will include paper topics, bibliography, theses statements, and outlines. Consult class schedule below for dates.

Graduate Course Requirements

Regular class attendance/participation (10 percent of course grade). Graduate students are expected to take a leadership role in class participation, raising questions, offering comparative historical insights, and giving critical commentary and perspective on topics under consideration.

In addition to regular class attendance and participation, the graduate requirement will be a major research paper on some aspect of religion in United States history in the period beginning with the seventeenth-century contact between Europeans and Indians and ending with the Civil War (90 percent of course grade). The paper should demonstrate historical thinking. It should be sensitive to social and cultural context, and it should seek to explain changes and continuities regarding its topic. It should review whatever previous historical work has been done on its topic and highlight its own specific contribution. The paper should be based on primary sources from the historical period, utilizing these for at least 50 percent of its bibliography. Footnotes or endnotes should follow the Chicago Manual of Style, 15^th ed., and a full bibliography of works consulted should accompany the paper. Papers are due on Monday, March 14.

There will be additional meetings with the instructor for graduate students.

Class Schedule

Learning in this course will come through your careful reading of assignments, through the lectures, and through the class’s focused discussion of questions that arise. You are expected to come to class with reading completed and at least one written paragraph that answers each day’s syllabus question.

Jan. 4 Orientation: The Nation with the Soul of a Church

Jan. 6 Indigenous Cultures and American Experience

In what ways did the coming of the Europeans affect seventeenth‑century American Indian cultures and religions, especially in New England?

Reading: LeBeau,. 8-34; Reader #1 (Eliot).

Jan. 11 Immigrant Religious Heritages: European and African

How did slavery and white hegemony affect the interactions between Europeans and Africans in North America?

Reading: LeBeau, 138-45; Reader #2 (Equiano).

Jan. 13 The Puritan Matrix of American Religion

What were the major factors shaping New England Puritanism in the seventeenth century?

Reading: LeBeau, 35-42; Reader #3 (Bradford, Winthrop).

RESEARCH PAPER. Submit topic.

Jan. 18 Quakerism in the Pennsylvania Colony

What was distinctive about Quakerism, and how did its differences affect Pennsylvania’s history?

Reading: LeBeau, 42-44; Reader #5 (Penn).

Jan. 20 The English Church Transplanted to Virginia

How did the English church adapt in Virginia and the South?

Reading: LeBeau, 44-46; Reader #4 (Force).

Jan. 25 The Great Awakening

What was the Great Awakening, and what was George Whitefield’s role in it?

Reading: LeBeau, 46-57; Reader #6 (Whitefield).

Jan. 27 Religion and the Woman Question in Colonial Context

What religious options were available to women in the North American colonies?

Reading: Reader #7 (Ashbridge).

RESEARCH PAPER. Submit bibliography and topic to which it pertains.

Feb. 1 Religion and the American Revolution

What role did religion play during and after the American Revolution?

Reading: LeBeau, 58-78; Reader #8 (Bullock).

Feb. 3 The Mission Mind in the New Evangelical Nation

What was the "mission mind" in the nineteenth-century United States? How was it related to church-state separation in the new nation, and what were its results?

Reading: LeBeau, 79-108; Reader #9 (Bower).

Feb. 8 Midterm Examination

Feb. 10 The New American Religions of "Christians" and Millerites

What is restorationism, what is millennialism, and how do both express early nineteenth‑century American concerns?

Reading: Reader #10 (Campbell, Bliss).

RESEARCH PAPER. Submit thesis statement, outline, and bibliography.

Feb. 15 Mormonism and New American Religion

How did Joseph Smith and his new Mormon religion express major beliefs and values at the base of popular American religion and culture?

Reading: LeBeau, 151-57; Reader #11 (Hansen).

Feb. 17 Religion, Reform, and Radicalism in Antebellum America

What forms did religious radicalism take in the middle years of the nineteenth century, and what was the relationship between religious radicalism and reform?

Reading: LeBeau, 109-36; Reader #12 (Todd, Noyes).

Feb. 22 Roman Catholicism in the New Nation

What were the major problems confronting Roman Catholicism in America, and how did it cope with them?

Reading: LeBeau, 137-38, 145-51, 157-62; Reader #13 (Dolan).

Feb. 24 The Growth of Judaism in Nineteenth‑Century America

What were the major religious developments within American Judaism in the years before the Civil War?

Reading: Reader #14 (Wise).

Mar. 1 Conservative Christian Theology and Evangelical Religion

What were the major emphases in the theological reflection of Charles Hodge, and how did his thinking express evangelical themes?

Reading: Reader #15 (Hodge).

Mar. 3 Liberal Theology and Christian Romanticism

How did Horace Bushnell's views about language shape his theological liberalism and Christian romanticism?

Reading: Reader #16 (Bushnell)

Mar. 8 Feminizing American Religion

How was religion related to social activism among women?

Reading: Reader #17 (Stanton). RESEARCH PAPERS DUE.

Mar. 10 Religion, Slavery, and the Civil War

What was the relationship between Christianity and slavery in the United States, and what was the impact of slavery itself on African-American religion?

Reading: LeBeau, 163-90; Reader #18 (Anonymous). COURSE EVALUATION.

Mar. 18 Tuesday, 9:00‑11:00 am. Final Examination.

Selected Bibliographical Resources

Sydney E. Ahlstrom. A Religious History of the American People (1972). Rev. ed. by David D. Hall. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004. (See bibliography.)

Catherine L. Albanese. America: Religions and Religion. 3d ed. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth Publishing, 1999. (See bibliographies at end of each chapter.)

George C. Bedell, Leo Sandon, Jr., and Charles T. Wellborn. Religion in America. 2d ed. New York: Macmillan, 1982.

John Corrigan and Winthrop S. Hudson. Religion in America: An Historical Account of the Development of American Religious Life. 7th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2004. (See bibliography.)

Edwin S. Gaustad, ed. A Documentary History of Religion in America. 2 vols. Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans, 1982‑83.

Edwin S. Gaustad and Leigh E. Schmidt. The Religious History of America. Rev. ed. San Francisco: Harper, 2002. (See bibliography.)

Charles H. Lippy and Peter W. Williams, eds. Encyclopedia of the American Religious Experience: Studies of Traditions and Movements. 3 vols. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1988. (See bibliographies at end of individual articles.)

George M. Marsden. Religion and American Culture. Fort Worth, Tex.: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1990. (See bibliography.)

Martin E. Marty. Pilgrims in their Own Land: 500 Years of Religion in America. Boston: Little, Brown, 1984.

Frank S. Mead. Handbook of Denominations in the United States. 8th ed., rev. by Samuel S. Hill. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1984.

J. Gordon Melton. The Encyclopedia of American Religions. 5th ed. Detroit: Gale Research, 1996. (See bibliographies for individual "families.")

Mark A. Noll. A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada. Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans, 1992. (See bibliography.)

Daniel G. Reid, et al. Dictionary of Christianity in America. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1990. (See bibliographies at end of individual entries.)

Peter W. Williams. America's Religions: Traditions and Cultures. Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 1998. (See bibliography.)

Other Information

· Students are to supply small‑size Scantron sheets and no. 2 pencils for midterm and final examinations.

· Office is located in 3075 Humanities and Social Sciences Building. Telephone in instructor’s office is 893-3530. E-mail address is albanese@religion.ucsb.edu. Please be aware that this e-mail address will not receive attachments. Please embed all material in a regular e-mail text file. N.B. No papers or other assignments may be submitted by e-mail.

· Office hours for this class are Tuesdays and Thursdays, 11:00 am – 12 noon.

· Students with disabilities who would like to discuss special academic accommodations should contact the instructor.