Faith and family in the Antebellum Piedmont South

UNCG Author/Contributor (non-UNCG co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
Christopher Alan Graham, Lecturer (Creator)
Institution
The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG )
Web Site: http://library.uncg.edu/
Advisor
Charles Bolton

Abstract: This dissertation examines the cultural and religious dynamics of the North Carolina Piedmont's non-planter social order. I look in depth at the modernizing elements of antebellum religion, particularly the sensibility of liberality that accompanied institutional development, how church disciplinary procedures adapted to changing social reality, and the formation of middle class style nuclear families under the aegis of evangelical prescription. In addition to using denominational records, I utilize four diaries of ordinary Piedmont residents in extended explorations of how individuals enacted in their private lives the public lessons of evangelicalism. I conclude that an evangelical ethic developed that existed alongside the dominant planter ideology, and that ethic formed the basis for both unity, and dissent, in the late antebellum period.

Additional Information

Publication
Dissertation
Language: English
Date: 2013
Keywords
Antebellum, Civil War, Family, Gender, Religion, South
Subjects
Families $x Religious life $z North Carolina
Evangelicalism $z North Carolina $x History $y 19th century
North Carolina $x Religious life and customs
North Carolina $x Church history $y 19th century

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