When Benjamin Franklin Met the Reverend Whitefield

When Benjamin Franklin Met the Reverend Whitefield PDF Author: Peter Charles Hoffer
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421403110
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 168

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Book Description
In the 1740s, two quite different developments revolutionized Anglo-American life and thought—the Enlightenment and the Great Awakening. This book takes an encounter between the paragons of each movement—the printer and entrepreneur Benjamin Franklin and the British-born revivalist George Whitefield—as an opportunity to explore the meaning of the beginnings of modern science and rationality on one hand and evangelical religious enthusiasm on the other. There are people who both represent the times in which they live and change them for the better. Franklin and Whitefield were two such men. The morning that they met, they formed a long and lucrative partnership: Whitefield provided copies of his journals and sermons, Franklin published them. So began one of the most unique, mutually profitable, and influential friendships in early American history. By focusing this study on Franklin and Whitefield, Peter Charles Hoffer defines with great precision the importance of the Anglo-American Atlantic World of the eighteenth century in American history. With a swift and persuasive narrative, Hoffer introduces readers to the respective life story of each man, examines in engaging detail the central themes of their early writings, and concludes with a description of the last years of their collaboration. Franklin's and Whitefield's intellectual contributions reach into our own time, making Hoffer's readable and enjoyable account of these extraordinary men and their extraordinary friendship relevant today. Also in the Witness to History series The Huron-Wendat Feast of the Dead: Indian-European Encounters in Early North America by Erik R. Seeman King Philip's War: Colonial Expansion, Native Resistance, and the End of Indian Sovereignty by Daniel R. Mandell The Caning of Charles Sumner: Honor, Idealism, and the Origins of the Civil War by Williamjames Hull Hoffer Bloodshed at Little Bighorn: Sitting Bull, Custer, and the Destinies of Nations by Tim Lehman

When Benjamin Franklin Met the Reverend Whitefield

When Benjamin Franklin Met the Reverend Whitefield PDF Author: Peter Charles Hoffer
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421403110
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 168

Get Book

Book Description
In the 1740s, two quite different developments revolutionized Anglo-American life and thought—the Enlightenment and the Great Awakening. This book takes an encounter between the paragons of each movement—the printer and entrepreneur Benjamin Franklin and the British-born revivalist George Whitefield—as an opportunity to explore the meaning of the beginnings of modern science and rationality on one hand and evangelical religious enthusiasm on the other. There are people who both represent the times in which they live and change them for the better. Franklin and Whitefield were two such men. The morning that they met, they formed a long and lucrative partnership: Whitefield provided copies of his journals and sermons, Franklin published them. So began one of the most unique, mutually profitable, and influential friendships in early American history. By focusing this study on Franklin and Whitefield, Peter Charles Hoffer defines with great precision the importance of the Anglo-American Atlantic World of the eighteenth century in American history. With a swift and persuasive narrative, Hoffer introduces readers to the respective life story of each man, examines in engaging detail the central themes of their early writings, and concludes with a description of the last years of their collaboration. Franklin's and Whitefield's intellectual contributions reach into our own time, making Hoffer's readable and enjoyable account of these extraordinary men and their extraordinary friendship relevant today. Also in the Witness to History series The Huron-Wendat Feast of the Dead: Indian-European Encounters in Early North America by Erik R. Seeman King Philip's War: Colonial Expansion, Native Resistance, and the End of Indian Sovereignty by Daniel R. Mandell The Caning of Charles Sumner: Honor, Idealism, and the Origins of the Civil War by Williamjames Hull Hoffer Bloodshed at Little Bighorn: Sitting Bull, Custer, and the Destinies of Nations by Tim Lehman

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin PDF Author: Benjamin Franklin
Publisher: Google Auto-narrated Demo
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 195

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Book Description
Franklin's Autobiography has received widespread praise, both for its historical value as a record of an important early American and for its literary style. This work has become one of the most famous and influential examples of an autobiography ever written. This title is based on the Harvard Classics edition.

The Printer and the Preacher

The Printer and the Preacher PDF Author: Randy Petersen
Publisher: HarperChristian + ORM
ISBN: 071802222X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
They were the most famous men in America. They came from separate countries, followed different philosophies, and led dissimilar lives. But they were fast friends. No two people did more to shape America in the mid-1700s. Benjamin Franklin was the American prototype: hard-working, inventive, practical, funny, with humble manners and lofty dreams. George Whitefield was the most popular preacher in an era of great piety, whose outdoor preaching across the colonies was heard by thousands, all of whom were told, “You must be born again.” People became excited about God. They began reading the Bible and supporting charities. When Whitefield died in 1770, on a preaching tour in New Hampshire, he had built a spiritual foundation for a new nation—just as his surviving friend, Ben Franklin, had built its social foundation. Together these two men helped establish a new nation founded on liberty. This is the story of their amazing friendship.

Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin PDF Author: Nathan R. Kozuskanich
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136174311
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 178

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Book Description
Known for his influential role in the debates that established the founding documents of the United States, Benjamin Franklin was not only an astute politician, but also an Atlantic citizen whose commitment to the American cause was informed by years spent in England and France. The life of this iconic founder provides an ideal opportunity for students to take a closer look at eighteenth century colonial society and the contested formation of the early American nation. In this carefully contextualized account, Nathan R. Kozuskanich considers the many facets of Franklin’s private and public lives, and shows how Franklin grappled with issues that still concern us today: the right to bear arms, the legacy of slavery, and the nature of American democracy. In a concise narrative bolstered by supporting primary documents, Benjamin Franklin: American Founder, Atlantic Citizen introduces students to the world of the burgeoning United States and enables them to understand the journey from imperial colonies to an independent nation dedicated to the premise that all men are created equal.

Print Technology in Scotland and America, 1740–1800

Print Technology in Scotland and America, 1740–1800 PDF Author: Louis Kirk McAuley
Publisher: Bucknell University Press
ISBN: 1611485444
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 345

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Book Description
In Print Technology in Scotland and America Louis Kirk McAuley investigatesthe mediation of popular-political culturein Scotland and America, from thetransatlantic religious revivals known as theGreat Awakening to the U.S. presidentialelection of 1800. By focusing on Scotlandand America—and, in particular, thetension between unity and fragmentationthat characterizes eighteenth-centuryScottish and American literature andculture—Print Technology aims to increaseour understanding of how tensions withinthese corresponding political and culturalarenas altered the meaning of printas an instrument of empire and nationbuilding. McAuley reveals how seeminglydisparate events, including journalism andliterary forgery, were instrumental andinnovative deployments of print not as a liberation technology (as Habermas’s analysis of print's structural transformation of the public sphere suggests), but as a mediator of political tensions.

Inventing George Whitefield

Inventing George Whitefield PDF Author: Jessica M. Parr
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 1626744955
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
Evangelicals and scholars of religious history have long recognized George Whitefield (1714-1770) as a founding father of American evangelicalism. But Jessica M. Parr argues he was much more than that. He was an enormously influential figure in Anglo-American religious culture, and his expansive missionary career can be understood in multiple ways. Whitefield began as an Anglican clergyman. Many in the Church of England perceived him as a radical. In the American South, Whitefield struggled to reconcile his disdain for the planter class with his belief that slavery was an economic necessity. Whitefield was drawn to an idealized Puritan past that was all but gone by the time of his first visit to New England in 1740. Parr draws from Whitefield's writing and sermons and from newspapers, pamphlets, and other sources to understand Whitefield's career and times. She offers new insights into revivalism, print culture, transatlantic cultural influences, and the relationship between religious thought and slavery. Whitefield became a religious icon shaped in the complexities of revivalism, the contest over religious toleration, and the conflicting role of Christianity for enslaved people. Proslavery Christians used Christianity as a form of social control for slaves, whereas evangelical Christianity's emphasis on "freedom in the eyes of God" suggested a path to political freedom. Parr reveals how Whitefield's death marked the start of a complex legacy that in many ways rendered him more powerful and influential after his death than during his long career.

Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin PDF Author: D. G. Hart
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198788991
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
Benjamin Franklin grew up in a devout Protestant family with limited prospects for wealth and fame. By hard work, limitless curiosity, native intelligence, and luck (what he called providence), Franklin became one of Philadelphia's most prominent leaders, a world recognized scientist, and the United States' leading diplomat during the War for Independence. Along the way, Franklin embodied the Protestant ethics and cultural habits he learned and observed as a youth in Puritan Boston. Benjamin Franklin: Cultural Protestant follows Franklin's remarkable career through the lens of the trends and innovations that the Protestant Reformation started (both directly and indirectly) almost two centuries earlier. His work as a printer, civic reformer, institution builder, scientist, inventer, writer, self-help dispenser, politician, and statesmen was deeply rooted in the culture and outlook that Protestantism nurtured. Through its alternatives to medieval church and society, Protestants built societies and instilled habits of character and mind that allowed figures such as Franklin to build the life that he did. Through it all, Franklin could not assent to all of Protestantism's doctrines or observe its worship, but for most of his life he acknowledged his debt to his creator, revelled in the natural world guided by providence, and conducted himself in a way (imperfectly) to merit divine approval. In this biography, D. G. Hart recognizes Franklin as a cultural or non-observant Protestant, someone who thought of himself as a Presbyterian, ordered his life as other Protestants did, sometimes went to worship services, read his Bible, and prayed, but could not go all the way and join a church.

George Whitefield

George Whitefield PDF Author: Thomas S. Kidd
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300181620
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
An engaging, balanced, and penetrating narrative biography of the charismatic eighteenth-century American evangelist In the years prior to the American Revolution, George Whitefield was the most famous man in the colonies. Thomas Kidd's fascinating new biography explores the extraordinary career of the most influential figure in the first generation of Anglo-American evangelical Christianity, examining his sometimes troubling stands on the pressing issues of the day, both secular and spiritual, and his relationships with such famous contemporaries as Benjamin Franklin, Jonathan Edwards, and John Wesley. Based on the author's comprehensive studies of Whitefield's original sermons, journals, and letters, this excellent history chronicles the phenomenal rise of the trailblazer of the Great Awakening. Whitefield's leadership role among the new evangelicals of the eighteenth century and his many religious disputes are meticulously covered, as are his major legacies and the permanent marks he left on evangelical Christian faith. It is arguably the most balanced biography to date of a controversial religious leader who, though relatively unknown three hundred years after his birth, was a true giant in his day and remains an important figure in America's history.

Methodism and the Rise of Popular Literary Criticism

Methodism and the Rise of Popular Literary Criticism PDF Author: Brett McInelly
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000888452
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 173

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Book Description
This book examines how Methodism and popular review criticism intersected with and informed each other in the eighteenth century. Methodism emerged at a time when the idea of a ‘public square’ was taking shape, a process facilitated by the periodical press. Perhaps more so than any previous religious movement, Methodism, and the publications associated with it, received greater scrutiny largely because of periodical literature and the emergence of popular review criticism. The book considers in particular how works addressing Methodism were discussed and critiqued in the era’s two leading literary periodicals – The Monthly Review and The Critical Review. Focusing on the period between 1749 and 1789, the study encompasses the formative years of popular review criticism and some of the more dramatic moments in the textual culture of early Methodism. The author illustrates some of the specific ways these review journals diverged in their critical approaches and sensibilities as well as their politics and religious opinions. The Monthly’s and the Critical’s responses to the Methodists’ own publishing efforts as well as the anti-Methodist critique are shown to be both multifaceted and complex. The book critically reflects on the pretended neutrality, reasonableness, and objectivity of reviewers, who at times found themselves negotiating between the desire to regulate literary tastes and the impulse to undermine the Methodist revival. It will be relevant to scholars of religion, history and literary studies with an interest in Methodism, print culture, and the eighteenth century.

George Whitefield Tercentenary Essays

George Whitefield Tercentenary Essays PDF Author:
Publisher: University of Wales Press
ISBN: 1783168358
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 169

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Book Description
This special issue of The Journal of Religious History, Literature and Culture comprises some of the papers delivered at the ‘George Whitefield after Three Hundred Years’ International Conference held in June 2014 at Pembroke College, Oxford, commemorating the tercentenary of George Whitefield’s birth in 1714. The Revd George Whitefield (1714–70) was a very important early Methodist leader, clergyman and writer, who has not attracted as much scholarly attention as John and Charles Wesley. This interdisciplinary volume contains articles on ‘George Whitefield and the Secession Movement’s Reaction to the Cambuslang Revival’ by Kenneth B. E. Roxburgh; ‘George Whitefield and Anti-Methodist Allegations of Popery, c.1738–c.1750’ by Simon Lewis; ‘Latitudinarian responses to Whitefield, c.1740–1790’ by G. M. Ditchfield; ‘Preachers, prints and portraits: Methodists and image in Georgian Britain’ by Peter S. Forsaith, with eight attractive images; ‘George Whitefield’s Journals: A Publishing Phenomenon’ by Digby James; and ‘George Whitefield’s Reception in Twentieth-Century German-Speaking Theology’ by Maximilian J. Hölzl.