Outsiders in a Promised Land

In this thoroughly researched and informative book, Dale E. Soden argues that many of the religiously driven reform efforts in the Pacific Northwest in the nineteenth century were intended to counter the effects of a predominantly male society. The activists there, the author argues, “were surprisingly united around a common concern: How could they make the region a safer place for women and children?” (p. viii). Concerned about the development of moral character, these reformers advocated for common schools and institutions of higher education and established orphanages, homes for unwed mothers, health care institutions, and public libraries. The narrative focuses on particular individuals: George Atkinson and his work on education, Mother Joseph of the Sisters of Providence, Valentine Prichard and her work with the poor, and Mark Matthews of First Presbyterian in Seattle (about whom Soden has written an excellent biography), among others. But the author charts larger movements as well, such as the Social Gospel, the popularity of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s, the megachurch movement, and opposition to nuclear weapons

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