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(More customer reviews)One of the most interesting books on antebellum reform to appear in the middle part of the twentieth century was Whitney Cross's "Burned-Over District." Originally published in 1950, Cross focused his attention on the western part of upstate New York and the religious and reform fervor that dominated the social and religious landscape. Emphasizing revivalism and religious experimentation during the Second Great Awakening, Cross sensitively balances sociological analysis with historical narrative to create a powerfully provocative portrait of life on the rural lands of western New York. At a fundamental level, Cross overturns the "Frontier Thesis" of Frederick Jackson Turner that argued for American exceptionalism based on the influence of a frontier environment. Cross sees many more longstanding European antecedents in the maku-up of society in "The Burned-Over District." He also notes that the settlers in this area did not have time to develop "religious enthusiasms" on their own, and that it was brought to them from the East.
Cross really sees the "fires" of revivalism and "enthusiastic religion" as a central ingredient in the making of American character, at least in upstate New York. This upheaval reoriented the landscape of American culture, gave rise to many of the mainstay denominations of later years, birthed such radical religious concepts as Mormonism and the Oneida Perfectionists, and altered the politics of the day through the introduction of such entities as the anti-Masonic party.
Cross divides his book into four basic parts. The first three chapters lay out the general parameters of the Second Great Awaking, its origins, evolution, and rationale. He finds this a purely constructed event, created through the efforts of missionary societies, itinerant preachers, and local religionists. His fourth and fifth chapters explore the appeal of revivalistic fervor, using a heavily sociological analysis. In both of these major sections of "The Burned-Over District" Cross emphasizes the influence of easterners on the experience as a direct challenge to the "Frontier Thesis." In chapters 6 through 9 Cross discusses specific leaders of these efforts, and in the last part of the book he explores the radical movements that emerged from revivalism and "religious enthusiasm."
I first read this book in graduate school about 1980 and found it a fascinating study, in part because it helped to put in context the rise of Mormonism, which was a special interest of mine. On rereading it, I find it still an interesting and useful work but it is less powerful than I recall from my graduate school experience. I still find it a useful local study of one aspect of antebellum reform, but there are other community studies of significance that have emerged to modify and in some instances to supersede its analysis. Among these are outstanding books on religious fervor such as Robert Abzug's "Cosmos Crumbling: American Reform and the Religious Imagination" (Oxford University Press, 1994), and community studies such as "A Shopkeeper's Millennium: Society and Revivals in Rochester, New York, 1815-1837" (Hill and Wang, 1979) by Paul E. Johnson. While a bit outdated, "The Burned-Over District" is still a most useful study.
Click Here to see more reviews about: The Burned-over District: The Social and Intellectual History of Enthusiastic Religion in Western New York, 1800-1850
During the first half of the nineteenth century the wooded hills and the valleys of western New York State were swept by fires of the spirit. The fervent religiosity of the region caused historians to call it the "burned-over district."
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