Red-Hot and Righteous
The Urban Religion of The Salvation Army
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- £24.99
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- £24.99
Publisher Description
In this engrossing study of religion, urban life, and commercial culture, Diane Winston shows how a (self-styled “red-hot”) militant Protestant mission established a beachhead in the modern city. When The Salvation Army, a British evangelical movement, landed in New York in 1880, local citizens called its eye-catching advertisements “vulgar” and dubbed its brass bands, female preachers, and overheated services “sensationalist.” Yet a little more than a century later, this ragtag missionary movement had evolved into the nation’s largest charitable fund-raiser--the very exemplar of America’s most cherished values of social service and religious commitment.
Winston illustrates how the Army borrowed the forms and idioms of popular entertainments, commercial emporiums, and master marketers to deliver its message. In contrast to histories that relegate religion to the sidelines of urban society, her book shows that Salvationists were at the center of debates about social services for the urban poor, the changing position of women, and the evolution of a consumer culture. She also describes Salvationist influence on contemporary life--from the public’s post-World War I (and ongoing) love affair with the doughnut to the Salvationist young woman’s career as a Hollywood icon to the institutionalization of religious ideals into nonsectarian social programs.
Winston’s vivid account of a street savvy religious mission transformed over the decades makes adroit use of performance theory and material culture studies to create an evocative portrait of a beloved yet little understood religious movement. Her book provides striking evidence that, counter to conventional wisdom, religion was among the seminal social forces that shaped modern, urban America--and, in the process, found new expression for its own ideals.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
At Christmas, the red kettles and the clanging bells of the Salvation Army are ubiquitous. On urban street corners and in suburban strip malls, the Armys missions and thrift stores operate when the bells have stopped ringing. How did the Salvation Army weave its way into the cultural fabric of America? In her first-rate social and religious history, Winstona research fellow at the Center for Media, Culture and History at New York Universitytraces the development of the Army from 1880, when it first arrived in New York, to 1950. Through a close examination of primary sources, the author contends that the Army used the forces of urbanization and commercialization, including dramatic performances and street parades, to its advantage, shaping urban religion along the way. She demonstrates that the Salvation Army saw all space as sacred and attempted to religionize secular things through its many activities. Many of the Armys marches, for example, carried them through commercial and residential districts, rich and poor neighborhoods, thus emphasizing the Armys contention that every place belongs to God. The social vision of the Army expressed itself not only in its urban missions but also in the Sallies, an organization of Salvationist women who served American troops in France in World War I. Far from being street preachers of hellfire and damnation, the members of the Salvation Army sought to redeem the world by meeting its physical needs and thereby implicitly meeting its spiritual needs. Writes Winston: Redeeming the world, according to the Armys founder, William Booth, meant facing its challenges (poverty, unemployment, alcoholism, and prostitution) and turning its secular idioms (advertisements, music, theater) into spiritual texts. Marked by lively writing, sure-handed and balanced scholarship and incisive wit, Winstons study is a must-read for readers interested in the Salvation Army and in the interrelationship of religion and culture.
