ePub Women's America: Refocusing the Past by Linda K. Kerber; Jane Sherron De Hart; Cornelia Hughes Dayton; Judy Tzu-Chun Wu in History

Description

In Gilded Age America; rampant inequality gave rise to a new form of Christianity; one that sought to ease the sufferings of the poor not simply by saving their souls; but by transforming society. In Union Made; Heath W. Carter advances a bold new interpretation of the origins of American Social Christianity. While historians have often attributed the rise of the Social Gospel to middle-class ministers; seminary professors; and social reformers; this book places working people at the very center of the story. The major characters--blacksmiths; glove makers; teamsters; printers; and the like--have been mostly forgotten; but as Carter convincingly argues; their collective contribution to American Social Christianity was no less significant than that of Walter Rauschenbusch or Jane Addams. Leading readers into the thick of late-19th-century Chicago's tumultuous history; Carter shows that countless working-class believers participated in the heated debates over the implications of Christianity for industrializing society; often with as much fervor as they did in other contests over wages and the length of the workday. The city's trade unionists; socialists; and anarchists advanced theological critiques of laissez faire capitalism and protested "scab ministers" who cozied up to the business elite. Their criticisms compounded church leaders' anxieties about losing the poor; such that by the turn-of-the-century many leading Christians were arguing that the only way to salvage hopes of a Christian America was for the churches to soften their position on "the labor question." As denomination after denomination did just that; it became apparent that the Social Gospel was; indeed; ascendant--from below.At a time when the fate of the labor movement and rising economic inequality are once more pressing social concerns; Union Made opens the door for a new way forward--by changing the way we think about the past.