| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 88.3

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to JAH online. About 244 words from this article are provided below; about 344 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the Organization of American Historians, 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.
If you are not a member of the Organization of American Historians, you can:: • Join the OAH and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the Journal of American History.
• 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 Journal of American History (86.1-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the Journal of American History.
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 Journal of American History, 88.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

The Gospel Working Up: Progress and the Pulpit in Nineteenth-Century Virginia. By Beth Barton Schweiger. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. xii, 267 pp. $49.95, ISBN 0-19-511195-8.)

By blending an analysis of denominational growth in nineteenth-century Virginia with a collective biography of about eight hundred white Baptist and Methodist ministers, The Gospel Working Up sketches a clear and detailed portrait of both men and churches. In depicting two denominations and three generations of pastors over the entire century's sweep, Beth Barton Schweiger demonstrates a knack for careful research and offers a sensitive interpretation of individual lives and congregations. In her hands, local church records, ministers' biographies, sermons, family papers, and denominational newspapers yield significant details while also highlighting a broader overall pattern. That pattern, in which innovation, self-improvement, bureaucratic efficiency, progress, and professionalization are the dominant themes, differs in important ways from that put forth by other historians. In Schweiger's view, historians for too long have viewed southern churches as "bastions of premodern and antimodern sentiment [and] . . . havens of oldtime religion for those fleeing the clatter of modern life." She wants to demonstrate that white Methodists and Baptists moved "from alienation to influence" in nineteenth-century Virginia through the professionalizing and self-improving drive of their ministers, a drive that manifested itself especially through "education and denomination building." Her book thus combines splendid research with an interpretive framework that, depending on one's point of reference, may or may not fit. . . .

There are about 344 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.