Revivalism and Social Reform

“This volume is offered as a ‘new slant on the origins of the social gospel,’ and so it is. Basing his study primarily on material gathered from newspapers, letters and religious and secular weeklies of the period, [Dr. Smith] contends that the heart of the social gospel was present in strong and explicit from in the undertakings of the revivalist of the years 1840-1855. The evangelists of this period played a vital role in preparing the way for the attack on slavery, poverty and greed. This is a real contribution to American religious history, and both general readers and scholars will find it of great interest.”—Kirkus Review

“So many historians have tracked the trail of the American revivalists that it is difficult for anyone to discover something new about that trail. Timothy Smith claimed to discover that they were more oriented towards social reform than their critics saw them to be. He backed up, with solid documentation, his claim that they were, in their own way, fathers of the Social Gospel. His book represented one of those rare moments in the study of American church history: the development of an original thesis, one worthy of the argument which it has during the past decade inspired and survived.”—Martin E. Marty