| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 89.3

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to JAH online. About 200 words from this article are provided below; about 377 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, 89.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

To Raise Up the South: Sunday Schools in Black and White Churches, 1865–1915. By Sally G. McMillen. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2001. xx, 297 pp. Cloth, $54.95, ISBN 0-8071-2725-6. Paper, $24.95, ISBN 0-8071-2749-3.)

Sally G. McMillen has written an important book that places Sunday schools at the center of black and white southern Progressivism. She draws on a variety of fresh sources to show that by 1915 those institutions were a key laboratory for reform for ordinary southerners. They socialized generations of children and taught many of them to read, offered meaningful work for a growing number of women eager to engage in religious benevolence, convinced black and white Protestants alike that bureaucratic efficiency was possible and desirable, and raised significant monies and recruited members for churches. 1

In carefully researched chapters, McMillen combines sources on white and black churches in the tradition of Paul Harvey's Redeeming the South (1997). Her analysis is particularly good on three issues: the economics of Sunday school publishing, the importance of women in the movement, and the schools as an expression of wide interest in institution building and bureaucratic efficiency among the growing middle classes in the postwar South. . . .

There are about 377 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.