Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp

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Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp | Putting Religion on the Map | The Journal of American History, 94.2 | The History Cooperative

Putting Religion on the Map

Religion and Public Life in New England: Steady Habits, Changing Slowly. Ed. by Andrew Walsh and Mark Silk. (Walnut Creek: AltaMira, 2004. 167 pp. Cloth, $65.00, ISBN 978-0-7591-0628-4. Paper, $19.95, ISBN 978-0-7591-0629-0.)

Religion and Public Life in the Middle Atlantic Region: The Fount of Diversity. Ed. by Randall Balmer and Mark Silk. (Walnut Creek: AltaMira, 2006. 178 pp. Cloth, $55.00, ISBN 978-0-7591-0636-9. Paper, $19.95, ISBN 978-0-7591-0637-6.)

Religion and Public Life in the Midwest: America's Common Denominator? Ed. by Philip Barlow and Mark Silk. (Walnut Creek: AltaMira, 2004. 254 pp. Cloth, $69.00, ISBN 978-0-7591-0630-4. Paper, $24.95, ISBN 978-0-7591-0631-2.)

Religion and Public Life in the Mountain West: Sacred Landscapes in Transition. Ed. by Jan Shipps and Mark Silk. (Walnut Creek: AltaMira, 2004. 166 pp. Cloth, $55.00, ISBN 978-0-7591-0626-6. Paper, $19.95, ISBN 978-0-7591-0627-4.)

Religion and Public Life in the Pacific Northwest: The None Zone. Ed. by Patricia O'Connell Killen and Mark Silk. (Walnut Creek: AltaMira, 2004. 204 pp. Cloth, $55.00, ISBN 978-0-7591-0624-X. Paper, $19.95, ISBN 978-0-7591-0625-8.)

Religion and Public Life in the Pacific Region: Fluid Identities. Ed. by Wade Clark Roof and Mark Silk. (Walnut Creek: AltaMira, 2005. 202 pp. Cloth, $55.00, ISBN 978-0-7591-0638-X. Paper, $19.95, ISBN 978-0-7591-0639-8.)

Religion and Public Life in the South: In the Evangelical Mode. Ed. by Charles Reagan Wilson and Mark Silk. (Walnut Creek: AltaMira, 2005. 224 pp. Cloth, $69.00, ISBN 978-0-7591-0634-5. Paper, $24.95, ISBN 978-0-7591-0635-2.)

Religion and Public Life in the Southern Crossroads: Showdown States. Ed. by William Lindsey and Mark Silk. (Walnut Creek: AltaMira, 2005. 190 pp. Cloth, $55.00 ISBN 978-0-7591-0632-0. Paper, $19.95, ISBN 978-0-7591-0633-9.)

In 1961 Wilbur Zelinsky published a lengthy article in the Annals of the Association of American Geographers on the religious geography of the United States. The author came to the subject with no background in religious studies but with a wealth of geographical expertise and a rigorous loyalty to inductive method. During his training in geography at the University of California at Berkeley during World War II, Zelinsky labored as a map draftsman. In 1946, after earning a master's degree from the University of Wisconsin, he analyzed terrain for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in occupied Germany. By the time he trained his sights on religion, he had become a keen observer of culture. Yet he crept toward his object with caution, prefacing his argument with abundant qualifications. American religious life is diverse, he noted, and its most consistent feature is the "constant and rapid change, the restless shifting of forces, the transmutation and re-shaping of regions, and thus the provisional configuration of current patterns." He acknowledged that the available data were "hopelessly inadequate ... even for satisfactory basic description." Nonetheless, he also recognized that "the temptation to speculate on the interrelationships between religious affiliation and political, social, and economic behavior is admittedly almost irresistible."¹

Zelinsky proposed a classificatory scheme of seven distinct "religious regions" and five "subregions," based on statistics drawn from the census conducted by the National Council of Churches in 1952. His conceptual framework occupied only the final few pages of his article. But it was that hesitantly created rubric, with subsequent glosses and elaborations, that has profoundly influenced efforts to study the interconnection of religion and region in the United States to this day. Utilizing a combination of geographical and denominational indicators, Zelinsky divided the nation into New England, an area dominated by Roman Catholics but inflected by a history of Congregationalism; the Midland, a lateral arc of Methodist strength stretching from the mid-Atlantic states to the Rockies; the Upper Middle Western Region, populated by Lutherans and Catholics but also exhibiting the influence of the westward trek of New England Congregationalism; the Southern Region, a sea of Baptists and slightly fewer Methodists "interrupted by islands of Catholics"; the Mormon Region; the Spanish Catholic Region of the Southwest; and the Western Region, characterized, according to the author, by its lack of recognizable religious personality.²

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