Agency, Denominations and the Western Colleges, 1830–1860: Some Connections between Evangelicalism and American Higher Education
This essay focuses attention on certain aspects of the religious forces which powerfully shaped the small colleges which dominated American higher education prior to the Civil War. Religion, and more specifically evangelical Protestantism, has long been recognized as an important factor influencing...
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Cambridge Univ. Press
1981
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| In: |
Church history
Year: 1981, Volume: 50, Issue: 1, Pages: 64-80 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (JSTOR) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Parallel Edition: | Non-electronic
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| Summary: | This essay focuses attention on certain aspects of the religious forces which powerfully shaped the small colleges which dominated American higher education prior to the Civil War. Religion, and more specifically evangelical Protestantism, has long been recognized as an important factor influencing the early history of these colleges. But the precise connections between evangelicalism and higher education during those years have not been studied very systematically recently, especially in the light of a new historiography concerning the ante-bellum college which has been developing during the past decade. This article begins with a brief sketch of the new historiography and tries to suggest some of the interpretive strengths and weaknesses of the recent writings. Then follows a description of the “agency” systems developed by certain Midwestern schools to aid in fund raising—a specific point of linkage between the general religious community and the colleges this community helped to found. This latter section seeks to redress in a limited way the interpretive imperfections of the recent historiography and to suggest something of the nature of the special relationships which existed between the small colleges of the Midwest and the evangelical Protestant churches during the middle decades of the nineteenth century. |
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| ISSN: | 1755-2613 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Church history
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.2307/3166480 |