The Chautauqua Moment

The Chautauqua Moment PDF Author: Andrew Chamberlin Rieser
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231126425
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 417

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Book Description
More than a college or a summer resort or a religious assembly, the Chautauqua movement was a composite of all of these, and for five decades after it began in 1874, Chautauqua dominated adult education and reached millions with its summer assemblies, reading clubs, and traveling circuits. This critical study weaves the threads of Chautauqua into a single story and places it at the vital center of fin de siecle cultural and political history.

The Chautauqua Moment

The Chautauqua Moment PDF Author: Andrew Chamberlin Rieser
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231126425
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 417

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Book Description
More than a college or a summer resort or a religious assembly, the Chautauqua movement was a composite of all of these, and for five decades after it began in 1874, Chautauqua dominated adult education and reached millions with its summer assemblies, reading clubs, and traveling circuits. This critical study weaves the threads of Chautauqua into a single story and places it at the vital center of fin de siecle cultural and political history.

Speaking of Jews

Speaking of Jews PDF Author: Lila Corwin Berman
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520943704
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
Lila Corwin Berman asks why, over the course of the twentieth century, American Jews became increasingly fascinated, even obsessed, with explaining themselves to their non-Jewish neighbors. What she discovers is that language itself became a crucial tool for Jewish group survival and integration into American life. Berman investigates a wide range of sources—radio and television broadcasts, bestselling books, sociological studies, debates about Jewish marriage and intermarriage, Jewish missionary work, and more—to reveal how rabbis, intellectuals, and others created a seemingly endless array of explanations about why Jews were indispensable to American life. Even as the content of these explanations developed and shifted over time, the very project of self-explanation would become a core element of Jewishness in the twentieth century.

Democracy as Discussion

Democracy as Discussion PDF Author: William M. Keith
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 9780739115077
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 380

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Book Description
Using primary sources from archives around the country, Democracy as Discussion traces the early history of the Speech field, the development of discussion as an alternative to debate, and the Deweyan, Progressive philosophy of discussion that swept the United States in the early twentieth century.

Books for Idle Hours

Books for Idle Hours PDF Author: Donna Harrington-Lueker
Publisher: UMass + ORM
ISBN: 1613766319
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 291

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Book Description
The publishing phenomenon of summer reading, often focused on novels set in vacation destinations, started in the nineteenth century, as both print culture and tourist culture expanded in the United States. As an emerging middle class increasingly embraced summer leisure as a marker of social status, book publishers sought new market opportunities, authors discovered a growing readership, and more readers indulged in lighter fare. Drawing on publishing records, book reviews, readers' diaries, and popular novels of the period, Donna Harrington-Lueker explores the beginning of summer reading and the backlash against it. Countering fears about the dangers of leisurely reading—especially for young women—publishers framed summer reading not as a disreputable habit but as a respectable pastime and welcome respite. Books for Idle Hours sheds new light on an ongoing seasonal publishing tradition.

The Good Country

The Good Country PDF Author: Jon K. Lauck
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806191406
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 479

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Book Description
At the center of American history is a hole—a gap where some scholars’ indifference or disdain has too long stood in for the true story of the American Midwest. A first-ever chronicle of the Midwest’s formative century, The Good Country restores this American heartland to its central place in the nation’s history. Jon K. Lauck, the premier historian of the region, puts midwestern “squares” center stage—an unorthodox approach that leads to surprising conclusions. The American Midwest, in Lauck’s cogent account, was the most democratically advanced place in the world during the nineteenth century. The Good Country describes a rich civic culture that prized education, literature, libraries, and the arts; developed a stable social order grounded in Victorian norms, republican virtue, and Christian teachings; and generally put democratic ideals into practice to a greater extent than any nation to date. The outbreak of the Civil War and the fight against the slaveholding South only deepened the Midwest’s dedication to advancing a democratic culture and solidified its regional identity. The “good country” was, of course, not the “perfect country,” and Lauck devotes a chapter to the question of race in the Midwest, finding early examples of overt racism but also discovering a steady march toward racial progress. He also finds many instances of modest reforms enacted through the democratic process and designed to address particular social problems, as well as significant advances for women, who were active in civic affairs and took advantage of the Midwest’s openness to women in higher education. Lauck reaches his conclusions through a measured analysis that weighs historical achievements and injustices, rejects the acrimonious tones of the culture wars, and seeks a new historical discourse grounded in fair readings of the American past. In a trying time of contested politics and culture, his book locates a middle ground, fittingly, in the center of the country.

A Godly Hero

A Godly Hero PDF Author: Michael Kazin
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0385720564
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 434

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Book Description
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: THE WASHINGTON POST, CHICAGO TRIBUNE, LOS ANGELES TIMES, ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH. Politician, evangelist, and reformer William Jennings Bryan was the most popular public speaker of his time. In this acclaimed biography—the first major reconsideration of Bryan’s life in forty years–award-winning historian Michael Kazin illuminates his astonishing career and the richly diverse and volatile landscape of religion and politics in which he rose to fame. Kazin vividly re-creates Bryan’s tremendous appeal, showing how he won a passionate following among both rural and urban Americans, who saw in him not only the practical vision of a reform politician but also the righteousness of a pastor. Bryan did more than anyone to transform the Democratic Party from a bulwark of laissez-faire to the citadel of liberalism we identify with Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1896, 1900, and 1908, Bryan was nominated for president, and though he fell short each time, his legacy–a subject of great debate after his death–remains monumental. This nuanced and brilliantly crafted portrait restores Bryan to an esteemed place in American history.

Sacred Playgrounds

Sacred Playgrounds PDF Author: Jacob Sorenson
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1532694628
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
Sacred Playgrounds explores the wisdom of camping ministry for Christian education and faith formation, examining its rich history and fundamental characteristics with compelling stories, groundbreaking research, and theological grounding. Christian summer camp is an integral part of the ecology of faith formation in North America, though it has received surprisingly little attention in the scholarly community until now. Camping ministry is often dismissed as simple fun and games or a brief spiritual high that does not last. However, camp experiences often serve as deeply relational and immersive faith experiences that have lasting impacts on participants. Five fundamental characteristics combine dynamically in the effective camp experience: participatory, faith-centered, safe space, relational, and unplugged from home. Together, they open the space for participants to consider new understandings of God, to have time for deep self-reflection, and to build intentional Christian community. These camp experiences are essential components in a larger ecology of faith formation, including the home and congregation. The insight and evidence presented in this book demonstrate that the contributions of camping ministry must be taken seriously among scholars, Christian educators, and ministry professionals.

Methodism in the American Forest

Methodism in the American Forest PDF Author: Russell E. Richey
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190266562
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 239

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Book Description
Winner of the 2015 Saddleback Selection Award from the Historical Society of The United Methodist Church During the nineteenth century, camp meetings became a signature program of American Methodists and an extraordinary engine for their remarkable evangelistic outreach. Methodism in the American Forest explores the ways in which Methodist preachers interacted with and utilized the American woodland, and the role camp meetings played in the denomination's spread across the country. Half a century before they made themselves such a home in the woods, the people and preachers learned the hard way that only a fool would adhere to John Wesley's mandate for preaching in fields of the New World. Under the blazing American sun, Methodist preachers sought and found a better outdoor sanctuary for large gatherings: under the shade of great oaks, a natural cathedral where they held forth with fervid sermons. The American forests, argues Russell E. Richey, served the preachers in several important ways. Like a kind of Gethesemane, the remote, garden-like solitude provided them with a place to seek counsel from the Holy Spirit. They also saw the forest as a desolate wilderness, and a means for them to connect with Israel's years after the Exodus and Jesus's forty days in the desert after his baptism by John. The dauntless preachers slashed their way through, following America's expanding settlement, and gradually sacralizing American woodlands as cathedral, confessional, and spiritual challenge-as shady grove, as garden, and as wilderness. The threefold forest experience became a Methodist standard. The meeting of Methodism's basic governing body, the quarterly conference, brought together leadership of all levels. The event stretched to two days in length and soon great crowds were drawn by the preaching and eventually the sacraments that were on offer. Camp meetings, if not a Methodist invention, became the movement's signature, a development that Richey tracks throughout the years that Methodism matured, to become a central denomination in America's religious landscape.

All the Facts

All the Facts PDF Author: James W. Cortada
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190460687
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 657

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Book Description
All the Facts presents a history of the role of information in the United States since 1870, when the nation began a nearly 150-year period of economic prosperity and technological and scientific transformations. James Cortada argues that citizens and their institutions used information extensively as tools to augment their work and private lives and that they used facts to help shape how the nation evolved during these fourteen decades. He argues that information's role has long been a critical component of the work, play, culture, and values of this nation, and no more so than during the twentieth century when its function in society expanded dramatically. While elements of this story have been examined by thousands of scholars---such as the role of radio, newspapers, books, computers, and the Internet, about such institutions as education, big business, expanded roles of governments from town administration to the state house, from agriculture to the services and information industries---All the Facts looks at all of these elements holistically, providing a deeper insight into the way the United States evolved over time. An introduction and 11 chapters describe what this information ecosystem looked like, how it evolved, and how it was used. For another vast layer of information about this subject the reader is directed to the detailed bibliographic essay in the back of this book. It includes a narrative history, case studies in the form of sidebars, and stories illustrating key points. Readers will find, for example, the story of how the US postal system helped create today's information society, along with everything from books and newspapers to TV, computers, and the Internet. The build-up to what many today call the Information Age took a long time to achieve and continues to build momentum. The implications for the world, and not just for the United States, are as profound as any mega-trend one could identify in the history of humankind. All the Facts presents this development thoroughly in an easy-to-digest format that any lover of history, technology, or the history of information and business will enjoy.

The Blackwell Guide to Theology and Popular Culture

The Blackwell Guide to Theology and Popular Culture PDF Author: Kelton Cobb
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0470777702
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 366

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Book Description
The Blackwell Guide to Theology of Popular Culture outlines various general theories of popular culture, identifies theologians and theological concepts that are conducive to analyzing popular culture, and explores religious themes that are asserting themselves through popular movies, novels, music, television shows and advertising. A timely examination and contribution to the rapidly expanding field of theology and popular culture Locates the theological analysis of culture alongside political, sociological, economic, aesthetic and psychological analyses Surveys the work of religious and theological scholars who have turned their attention to popular culture Considers classic Christian thinkers who have wrestled with culture, such as St. Paul, Tertullian, Augustine, Schleiermacher, Tillich, and Ricoeur Proposes a method for analysing culture to discern its religious content Identifies religious themes in popular culture Uses illustrations, ranging from the fiction of Nick Hornby to Six Feet Under An appendix provides lists of films, novels, television series, consumer products, architectural works, cultural events, and corporate icons that lend themselves to theological analysis.