Second Great Awakening

Second Great Awakening
Dubourg, M., engraver Milbert, Jacques Gérard, 1766-1840 , artist · Public domain · source
Name	Second Great Awakening
Caption	Cane Ridge Revival, 1801
Date	c. 1790s–1840s
Place	United States
Outcome	Expansion of Methodism, growth of Baptist, rise of Holiness movement, influence on Abolitionism, Temperance movement, Women's rights movement

Second Great Awakening

The Second Great Awakening was a widespread Protestant revival movement in the early 19th century that reshaped American religious life and politics. It stimulated growth in Methodism, Baptist denominations, and new movements such as the Restoration Movement, while influencing social reforms including Abolitionism, the Temperance movement, and the Seneca Falls Convention. Major events like the Cane Ridge Revival, itinerant preaching circuits, and camp meetings altered patterns of worship across regions from New England to the frontier.

Origins and Historical Context

The revival emerged in the aftermath of the American Revolutionary War and during the political transformations of the Era of Good Feelings, reflecting tensions from the War of 1812 and the rapid settlement of the Old Northwest. Religious ferment built on earlier roots in the First Great Awakening and intersected with institutional changes at seminaries such as Andover Theological Seminary and universities like Princeton University and Yale University. Economic shifts tied to the Market Revolution and migration along the Erie Canal corridor altered community structures in states including New York, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee, creating receptive environments for revival itinerants like those associated with the Methodist Episcopal Church and the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America.

Theology and Key Doctrines

Revival theology emphasized doctrines rooted in evangelical Protestantism such as personal conversion, the necessity of a new birth, and perfectionist ethical expectations found in movements like the Holiness movement. It reacted against Unitarianism and deistic tendencies present among intellectuals in places like Boston and engaged polemically with clerical authorities from the Episcopal Church and the more formalist wings of Presbyterianism. Preachers championed doctrines of free will against predestinarian currents associated with some strands of Calvinism, drawing on biblical sources and revival literature circulated by publishers in Philadelphia and New York City. Theological innovations also informed communal experiments such as Shaker settlements and the Oneida Community, which reinterpreted sanctification and social order.

Camp Meetings and Revival Practices

Camp meetings, frontier revivals, and itinerant preaching circuits were central practices, epitomized by gatherings like Cane Ridge and by itinerants such as Barton W. Stone and Peter Cartwright. These events blended charismatic preaching, lay exhortation, and hymnody from figures including Charles Wesley’s influence through Methodist tradition and hymn compilers in Salem, Massachusetts and Philadelphia. Revival practices spawned itinerant networks connecting presbyteries, quarterly conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and revival associations in the Trans-Appalachian West. Publications such as revival hymnals and testimony narratives proliferated through printers in Baltimore and New York, shaping the culture of conversion narratives seen in the writings of contemporaries like Lyman Beecher and Finney, Charles G..

Social and Cultural Impact

The movement propelled organized reform campaigns including Abolitionism led by activists linked to William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, and religious antislavery societies; the Temperance movement mobilized groups like the American Temperance Society; and the movement fostered the emergence of the Women's rights movement, culminating in events such as the Seneca Falls Convention and the activism of leaders like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott. It also affected Native American missionizing via organizations like the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions and intersected with colonization projects associated with the American Colonization Society. Educational and charitable institutions such as Oberlin College and orphanages in cities like Boston and Cincinnati trace roots to revival-inspired philanthropy.

Major Leaders and Movements

Key leaders included itinerant revivalists and institutional promoters: Charles G. Finney of the Burned-over district, Barton W. Stone, Francis Asbury, Peter Cartwright, Lyman Beecher, and denominational figures in Methodism and Baptist life. Movements tied to these leaders included the Restoration Movement, the Holiness movement, and schismatic developments like the formation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with founder Joseph Smith. Other notable actors and organizations ranged from revival publishing houses in Philadelphia to missionary societies and reform congregations in New England and the Old Northwest.

Regional Variations and Timeline

Revival activity varied regionally: intense early revivals occurred in the New England states and the Burned-over district of New York in the 1790s–1820s; frontier revivals surged in Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee around 1800–1825 exemplified by Cane Ridge; the Old Northwest and Illinois experienced sustained growth in the 1820s–1840s; and the South saw expansion of Baptist and Methodist networks through camp meetings and itinerancy into the antebellum period. Chronologically, influential moments include the Cane Ridge Revival (1801), the rise of Charles G. Finney in the 1820s, and ongoing reform linkages through the 1830s and 1840s that fed into movements like Abolitionism and the Women's rights movement.

Category:Religious revivals in the United States