This book questions how religion was lived in nineteenth-century America through a study that weaves together a range of sources, both archaeological and textual. The focus is evangelical Protestantism, which witnessed a renewed popularity in the Second Great Awakening that brought hundreds of thousands to revivals in communities across America and contributed to the blossoming of numerous reform movements. Once converted, evangelicals aspired to live a life of Christian perfection, which included ideas about what believers should consume and surround themselves with inside the home. While wri ... More

This book questions how religion was lived in nineteenth-century America through a study that weaves together a range of sources, both archaeological and textual. The focus is evangelical Protestantism, which witnessed a renewed popularity in the Second Great Awakening that brought hundreds of thousands to revivals in communities across America and contributed to the blossoming of numerous reform movements. Once converted, evangelicals aspired to live a life of Christian perfection, which included ideas about what believers should consume and surround themselves with inside the home. While written records are rich with descriptions of these new ideas, scholars know less about the ways believers actually lived them. The case study described in this volume contributes to the research domain by exploring how religion was lived at various sites excavated in Smithfield, New York, which earned a reputation as a reform utopia under the leadership of activist Gerrit Smith. An analysis of texts, artifacts, and landscapes suggests that living one's faith and encouraging others to do the same in antebellum America was a process defined by struggle as believers and nonbelievers negotiated their beliefs and webs of social relationships at the household and community levels. This dialectical study raises questions about why the struggles have been forgotten by many in the present. Further, it contributes to a prolonged conversation that historical archaeologists have been having about how they do their work—including how they approach the written and material record as well as how they conceptualize religion, reform, consumption, and cultural identity.