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Many history textbooks practically ignore the spiritual ferment of the early 1800s. Yet recent historical research reveals that religious enthusiasm was widespread and that it had a profound effect on our nation. To better understand this era, Christian History talked with Nathan O. Hatch, professor of history and vice-president of advanced studies at the University of Notre Dame. He is author of the award-winning The Democratization of American Christianity (Yale, 1989).

Early America was a time of tremendous religious energy. How significant was this era?

The American population grows spectacularly in the early republic. But the growth of the churches far surpasses it.

Between the American Revolution and 1845, the United States grew from 2.5 million to 20 million—about eight-fold. But the number of clergy per capita tripled, from 1:1,500 to 1:500. Methodists and Baptists grew from a few thousand to 1.5 million each. By the Civil War, America was essentially an “evangelical nation.”

Why the spiritual ferment at this time?

Coming out of the American Revolution, there is a tremendous political upsurge, a revolt against traditional authority. Common people asked, “Why should we defer to our ‘betters’?” There’s a revolt against the clergy, who have been to college, who read their sermons, who are “gentlemen,” who don’t work with their hands.

The democratic ferment sweeping the land helps empower popular religion. You see the rise of all kinds of groups led by common people, men and women without college education, who speak the common idiom. Someone like Lorenzo Dow, who became a phenomenal character in the early republic, was untutored and unlearned and made no bones about that. It was almost a badge of honor not to be educated.

In addition, during this period, people are no longer interested in high-toned and formal religion; instead, they’re looking for something more expressive. Methodism especially introduces the supernatural into everyday life by respecting emotional expressions of faith. You see the prevalence of dreams, visions, ecstasy, swooning, dancing, the jerks, the barks—this is boiling-hot religion.

What role did the frontier play in all this?

During the era, the frontier is undergoing tremendous population surges. For instance, from 1776 to 1790, Kentucky grew from having almost no European-descended settlers to a population of 75,000. Not since the seventeenth century had such a high proportion of the white population lived in newly settled communities.

Whether it’s the Maine frontier or the New England hill country or Tennessee or Ohio, fresh communities are springing up, where traditional denominations—Presbyterian, Congregational, Anglican—don’t play much of a role. It’s a religious free market. The Methodists and Baptists and itinerant revivalists offer a grassroots, non-traditional Christianity that appeals to the people pouring into these places.

How did these non-traditional preachers do it?

Their sermons are extemporaneous, not written, and they’re in the language the people speak. The same is true of the singing; hymns have more of a folk feeling—this is the beginning of gospel hymns.

One lesser-known factor is the effective use of print. The early republic was the great age of the decentralization of the press. Paper and printing presses had become cheap. Almost anyone could crank out printed material, but the evangelicals were the shrewdest at using this technology.

The Methodists were geniuses at using print—tracts, pamphlets, Bibles, newspapers. Revival preachers and sect leaders were communication entrepreneurs who used the popular press to command their audience. They published hundreds of thousands of tracts and papers.

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