Description
One of America's most
enduring forms of public worship, the camp meeting had its
beginnings at the
dawn of the nineteenth century during the "Great
Revival" that swept the newly settled regions of the
young republic. Camping out at religious gatherings brought
people from diverse backgrounds into
close and sustained contact, creating a small society governed by
religious harmony. The culmination
of this phenomenon came in 1801 at Cane Ridge Presbyterian
meetinghouse in Kentucky, where more
than ten thousand people gathered for a week of worship and
fellowship.
To trace the origins of the camp meeting, Ellen Eslinger follows
Kentucky's development from its
initial settlement in 1775 to the eve of the Great Revival. She
describes how a region first characterized
by border warfare during the Revolution quickly cast off its
frontier beginnings. Even so, she
demonstrates, settlers found it difficult to cope with challenges
posed by economic competition,
political partisanship, and cultural conflict. In this time of
uncertainty, camp meetings brought a
restored sense of community attachment, merging Christian and
republican ideals to create a new
model of American society.
Citizens of Zion does more than explain a particular instance of
religious revivalism; it explores the
creation of a new form of worship that enabled people to relate
more comfortably to a changing society
through an intense collective experience. It explains how early
camp meeting revivalism--as exemplified
by the Cane Ridge gathering--differed significantly from both
earlier evangelical forms and later
manifestations. Camp meeting revivalism, Eslinger shows,
eventually came to reflect the emerging
liberal culture, but its early years reveal it as an important
mechanism for reintegration into a rapidly
transforming world.
The Author: Ellen Eslinger is associate professor of history at
DePaul University.
March 1999, 328 pp.,
Illustrations, LC 98-25485
Cloth, ISBN: 1-57233-033-3, $38.00s
Religious Studies, American History, Appalachian Studies
Rooted in America
Foodlore of Popular Fruits
andVegetables
Edited by David Scofield Wilson and Angus Kress Gillespie
Description
From the exotic appeal of oranges to the joy of home-grown
tomatoes, many fruits and vegetables have come to play key roles
in our gardening, cooking, and eating habits. This book explores
ten familiarcultivars-apples, bananas, corn, cranberries,
peppers, oranges, pumpkins, tobacco, tomatoes, and watermelons-to
show how they have become intimately entwined with the American
way of life.
Through recipes and superstitions, jokes and urban legends,
history and advertising, these foods have become unmistakably
part of our popular culture. We might attend a county fair and
see a blue ribbon awarded to a prize pumpkin, then take in a
movie that evening where we see a cigarette dangling from
Humphrey Bogart's lips or even witness The Attack of the Killer
Tomatoes. Whether native or exotic,consumed daily or associated
with festivities, these common comestibles have become food for
thought as well as for sustenance.
Rooted in America examines how these foods express our cultural
values and carry meanings that derive from the contexts in which
we place them. It offers a tour of the apple in American history
and consciousness, from Johnny Appleseed to mass production;
tells how fruit companies taught North Americans to eat bananas
while teaching Central Americans to grow them; examines differing
social status attached to eating corn; explores the aesthetic
contribution of cranberries to plate and landscape; and reveals
how hot peppers separate men from boys-and also European from
non-European cultures.
All of the essays show how these foods have slipped into our
minds and hearts as symbols of what we value about ourselves and
the places we live. Rooted in America will delight readers with
its insights into favorite foods-proving that, no matter what
their origins, all are as American as apple pie.
The Editors: David Scofield Wilson is emeritus professor and
former director of American studies at the University of
California, Davis, and author of In the Presence of Nature.
Angus Kress Gillespie is associate professor of American studies
at Rutgers University and coeditor of American Wildlife in Symbol
and Story, also from Tennessee.
Contributors: Angus Kress Gillespie, Virginia S. Jenkins, Jay
Mechling, Theresa Melendez, Boria Sax, C. W. Sullivan III, Tad
Tuleja, Patricia A. Turner, David Scofield Wilson.
July 1999, 248 pp.,
Illustrations, LC 98-58096
Cloth, ISBN: 1-57233-052-X, $38.00s
Paper, ISBN: 1-57233-053-8, $16.95s
Folklore, American Studies
September 29, 2000