Supply-side and Demand-side Revivalism?

Abstract

The revivalism connected with what we now call the Second Great Awakening was well established on the American landscape by the 1830s. Having observed the impact of camp meetings and itinerant preachers, particularly in the Far West, Alexis de Tocqueville noted that, “Here and there, in the midst of American Society, you meet with men, full of a fanatical and almost wild enthusiasm” (1847: 142). Yet Tocqueville's discomfort with frontier revivalism was hardly universal. By the late 1820s, many Americans recognized the recruiting success of western Baptists, Methodists, and Christians, and young men like Charles Finney modified their camp-meeting techniques for use in eastern churches. Although his methods shocked many hard-core Calvinists, Finney's New Measures soon overwhelmed the quiet, traditionalist revivalism of Nathaniel Taylor, Asahel Nettleton, and Lyman Beecher. As Finney and his associates gained wider acceptance throughout the nation, they also moved the Second Great Awakening from its formative stage, described by Nathan Hatch (1989), to a mainstream stage described by William McLoughlin (1978), Paul Johnson (1979), and numerous other historians (e.g., Ryan 1983, Roth 1987, C. Johnson 1989).