Inventing the "Great Awakening"

by Franklin T. Lambert

This book is a history of an astounding transatlantic phenomenon, a popular evangelical revival known in America as the first Great Awakening (1735-1745). Beginning in the mid-1730s, supporters and opponents of the revival commented on the extraordinary nature of what one observer called the "great ado," with its extemporaneous outdoor preaching, newspaper publicity, and rallies of up to 20,000 participants. Frank Lambert, biographer of Great Awakening leader George Whitefield, offers an overview of this important episode and proposes a new explanation of its origins.


The Great Awakening, however dramatic, was nevertheless unnamed until after its occurrence, and its leaders created no doctrine nor organizational structure that would result in a historical record. That lack of documentation has allowed recent scholars to suggest that the movement was "invented" by nineteenth-century historians. Some specialists even think that it was wholly constructed by succeeding generations, who retroactively linked sporadic happenings to fabricate an alleged historic development. Challenging these interpretations, Lambert nevertheless demonstrates that the Great Awakening was invented--not by historians but by eighteenth-century evangelicals who were skillful and enthusiastic religious promoters. Reporting a dramatic meeting in one location in order to encourage gatherings in other places, these men used commercial strategies and newly popular print media to build a revival--one that they also believed to be an "extraordinary work of God." They saw a special meaning in contemporary events, looking for a transatlantic pattern of revival and finding a motive for spiritual rebirth in what they viewed as a moral decline in colonial America and abroad.


By examining the texts that these preachers skillfully put together, Lambert shows how they told and retold their revival account to themselves, their followers, and their opponents. His inquiries depict revivals as cultural productions and yield fresh understandings of how believers "spread the word" with whatever technical and social methods seem the most effective.

Genres: History, Religion, American History, Class

320 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1999

About the author

Franklin T. Lambert is a professor of history at Purdue University, Indiana, United States. He received his PhD from Northwestern University, Illinois, in 1990 and has special interests in American Colonial and Revolutionary Era history. Before earning his PhD he was also a punter for the Pittsburgh Steelers from 1965 to 1966.

Reviews

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

So, there is an argument propagated by some historians that the Great Awakening (the first one) is an interpretive fiction. This is something, they say, that was invented by 19th century historians. Sure, there were revivals, but they didn't really add up to anything. What Lambert is arguing here is that it was not 19th century historians who created the interpretive fiction, but rather the 18th century participants in the awakening – the very preachers who chronicled and publicized the events as they were taking place. Through exchanging and comparing their notes with each other, these preachers aligned their stories. Differences between various instances of revival were glossed over, and the whole thing began to be seen as one big movement.
Starting in the 1730s, a number of American preachers began to see signs of what they viewed as the work of God among the people. A number of Presbyterians and Congregationalists had been predicting a general revival for a long time. When news filtered into Boston of a revival in the Connecticut River Valley of Massachusetts, Rev. Jonathan Edwards was persuaded to write an account of the events. By a remarkable coincidence, Edward’s book was published in London at roughly the same time as the rise of a promising young preacher named George Whitefield, whose itinerant preaching was beginning to draw mentions in newspapers. Many religious leaders in the British Atlantic world believed that these events were clear signs that the awakening they had predicted had finally begun. Because a cross-Atlantic letter-writing and publishing network existed at that time, these ministers were able to publicize their views of the awakening very effectively, and this publicity inspired congregations on both sides of the ocean to imagine themselves as participants in an enormous general revival. Revival narratives and testimonials were passed back and forth across the ocean, and read aloud in church services, and all this resulted in a transatlantic “revivalist imagined community.” Meanwhile, even while the GA was going on, many people were attacking the idea that the various revivals constituted a unified awakening. Lambert calls the debate an “early American cultural war.” Critics made some of the same charges that historians make today, such as that the revivals were exaggerated, or that they were not naturally occurring, but rather instigated by the ministers. Defenders of the awakening replied that the revivals were God’s work, and revival ministers were merely tools of God.
Basically, Lambert's argument about the the GA is simple: since lots of people at the time THOUGHT they were having a "great awakening," then they were. We can argue about whether it was really a work of God (as people did at the time). But we can't argue that it didn't happen. It is only an interpretive fiction in the same way that basically everything in history is an interpretive fiction.

[Sam Newton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lambert argues that the Great Awakening was an invention, but it was one invented by evangelicals at the time, not later in the 19th century, as other historians have argued. He does not believe it was a false invention: people found meaning in isolated revivals and spread that enthusiasm to others. There was an active promotion, seen by many as a need to reverse spiritual decline. Others at the time contested the idea that there was a universal movement. "American revivalists forged links between local awakenings to create an intercolonial revival" (p. 151). Later in the 19th century, the GA was recast to suit revivalists' purposes.