Item Detail
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11991
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0
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20
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English
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Egalitarian Transformation : Gender, Religious Culture and Family Government on the Western Reserve of Ohio, 1800-1830
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Boston, Massachusetts
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Boston University
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Ph.D. diss.
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"This study focuses on the intersection of frontier experience, religious culture, and family and community life on the Western Reserve of Ohio from 1800 to 1830. It argues that the region's distinctive religious landscape fostered a renegotiation of gender roles within the family as well as the larger community. Most settlers on the Reserve had been raised in a New England culture dominated by Congregationalism. The ideal Congregational community achieved order and stability through a hierarchy which placed ministers above laymen, the pious over the impious, and, above all, men over women. Male heads of households oversaw the spiritual affairs of their family, as a minister oversaw the religious concerns of the community. The Great Awakening revivals of the mid-eighteenth century fostered increasing religious diversity in New England, yet by 1800 most dissenters there shared the Congregational vision of a patriarchal community. In contrast, the Western Reserve offered a larger role for female religious expression within the church and family religious government. Religious diversity played an important role in this renegotiation. Baptists, Methodists, Universalists, Disciples of Christ, Shakers, and Mormons competed with Congregationalists to define the religious culture of the region. Many of these groups proved far more welcoming of female religious participation and leadership than did Congregationalists. The distinctive religious landscape of the Western Reserve also fostered the transformation of gender roles in religious life. Few ministers settled on the early Reserve, transforming the church from an hierarchical institution to a more egalitarian gathering of local believers. These local gatherings encouraged female participation. Revivals also highlighted female religious expression. Finally, on the sparsely-settled frontier, the task of maintaining religiosity fell primarily to families. Yet as family religion increased in importance, male heads of households did not adequately answer the call. Paralleling developments in New England, Western Reserve religious leaders increasingly looked to women for family religious leadership. In New England, this encouragement of female leadership took place within an established patriarchal religious structure. Without such a structure on the Reserve, women gained a prominent religious voice denied them in New England." [Author's abstract]
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