| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 107.1

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to the AHR online. About 296 words from this article are provided below; about 663 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the American Historical Association, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time. AHA members can go to the AHA individual membership section to locate their member numbers.
If you are not a member of the American Historical Association, you can:: • Join the AHA and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the American Historical Review.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the American Historical Review (104.3-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the American Historical Review.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 107.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

Mark S. Schantz. Piety in Providence: Class Dimensions of Religious Experience in Antebellum Rhode Island. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. 2000. Pp. xiii, 280. $45.00.

In this well-written and finely textured study, Mark S. Schantz argues that "religious culture played a decisive role in the process of class formation in antebellum Providence" (p. 2). Covering the years from 1790 to 1860, Schantz narrates Providence's evolution from a harmonious, inclusive (albeit paternalistic and hierarchical) community to a bifurcated city of industrialists and entrepreneurs on the one hand and workers and plebeians on the other. At the center of this development is a complex story of individuals and social groups whose religious convictions, motivations, and behavior both shaped and were shaped by the economic transformation of Providence and its surrounding villages. A rising market economy, accompanied by disparity in wealth and increasing class-consciousness, became the new materialist reality, while religion supplied the ideological grid through which the inhabitants of Providence filtered these new realities. 1

Providence emerged from the American Revolution as a socially stable, thoroughly Federalist and Protestant community. Revivals, religious associations, civic groups, antislavery societies, and new church construction testified to the all-encompassing role of religion. In nearby textile mill villages, reform-minded missionaries, teachers, and tract distributors reached out to the unchurched proletariat with the message of moral uplift and redemption. Simultaneously, new forces of individualism, equality, and the market economy challenged notions of an organic society knit together by the bonds of religion and social deference. For example, the sale and auction of church pews not only "profaned" religious space but also demarcated the wealthy from the humble and intensified the power of men (as purchasers of pews) over women in the affairs of the church. . . .

There are about 663 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.