Agency, Denominations and the Western Colleges, 1830-1860

Some Connections between Evangelicalism and American Higher Education

Bibliographic Data

ID3209441
AuthorsJames Findlay (0000-0003-4117-881X, University of Rhode Island, corresponding author)
Year1981
Volume50
Issue1
Pages64-80
Publication date1981-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueChurch History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0009-6407 • E-ISSN: 1755-2613
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/3166480
OpenAlexW1973662937
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited14

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

Agency (philosophy) · Historiography · Political science · Protestantism · Redress · Sketch · Social science · Sociology · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Catholicism and Religious Studies · Gender Studies · History · Law · Religion, Gender, and Enlightenment

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