This dissertation is an historical anthropology investigating the late 19th century liturgical landscapes of the National Camp‐Meeting Association for the Promotion of Holiness, an organization of Methodist clergy who sought ecclesiastical and social reform primarily through camp‐meeting revivals promoting the experience of entire sanctification. National camp meetings drew from the liturgical and architectural traditions of early 19th century frontier revivalism, yet, as this dissertation argues, these meetings were not simply an appropriation of the structure of Second Great Awakening revivals for the purpose of promoting holiness theology in decidedly more urban areas of the Northeast and Mid‐Atlantic. Rather, these meetings were a (re)imagining of the cultural practice of the camp‐meeting through a Victorian system of symbolic meanings, a middle‐class, (ex)urban geographic context, and a distinctive set of liturgical performances, social interactions, and cognitive‐environmental and architectural cues designed to elicit a changed subjectivity among attendees. Each of these transformations shaped the social space, architectural configuration, and site selection of the liturgical landscapes of the National Camp‐Meeting Association, and it is these spatial and material traces that offer a substantial body of data for the interpretation of past religious and ritual landscapes in North America. Such interpretation of revival landscapes is possible through a process of cross‐mending archival sources (diaries, autobiographies, biographies, historic correspondence, newspaper reports, sermon texts, organizational documents, maps, photographs), material culture, archaeological reports, geo‐spatial and environmental data to reconstruct and thickly interpret the ritual landscapes of three early meetings of the National Camp‐Meeting Association for the Promotion of Holiness – Vineland, New Jersey, Manheim, Pennsylvania, and Round Lake, New York. In its results, this dissertation argues for a significant connection between Methodism, geographic regions, and 19th century holiness practices, and an interpretation of holiness revivalism as a means of renegotiating moral orders amidst industrialization, urbanization, vacationing, and changing social fault lines in the church including race and gender.

Virginia's only montane pine barren, located in the Warm Springs Mountain Nature Preserve in the Allegheny Highlands of western Virginia is likely threatened by successional changes initiated by a history of fire suppression. Dominated by early successional fire adapted species, such as dwarfed Pinus rigida (Mill.) and Quercus ilicifolia (Wangenh.), this shrubland is home to numerous rare plants and invertebrates. We used vegetation analysis and dendrochronology to document establishment and recruitment patterns and to identify successional trends at this site. Tree establishment of the dominant tree species (P. rigida and Quercus rubra L.) peaked following the last known fire event in the early 1930s. Vegetation analysis revealed an absence of P. rigida seedling recruitment as well as a low density of fire adapted species such as Q. ilicifolia. In contrast, Q. rubra is represented in a variety of age classes and shade tolerant trees such as Acer rubrum (L.) and Pinus strobus (L.) are beginning to establish. A dense understory of ericaceous shrubs and a thick litter layer appear to inhibit recruitment of P. rigida and other early successional species pointing to the need for active management in the form of prescribed burns, which have been effective in other pine barrens. / Master of Science

Secondary growth responses of native and nonnative trees exposed to the same climatic conditions can elucidate sensitivities and thus adaptability to a particular region. A long-term mixed-species planting in the pine barrens of northern lower Michigan presented an opportunity to discriminate responses from species commonly planted in this region. Mean ring-width chronologies from living native Pinus resinosa Ait. and P. strobus L. and nonnative P. sylvestris L. and Picea abies (L.) Karst. at this plantation were generated, standardized, and analyzed by correlation analysis against mean monthly climatic variables. The native pine chronologies had the highest mean ring widths and signal-to-noise ratios (SNR), were highly correlated to each other, and exhibited positive responses to years with above-normal April temperatures but no significant relationships to variations in precipitation. The P. sylvestris chronology was highly correlated to the other two pine chronologies and responded similarly to April temperatures but exhibited negative correlations to January and April precipitation and positive correlations to September precipitation. The P. abies chronology had the highest mean sensitivity and was correlated with the P. strobus chronology but only responded positively to precipitation from the previous December. The low SNR (P. sylvestris, P. abies), high mean sensitivity (P. abies), and larger number of significant correlations to variations in monthly climatic variables (P. sylvestris) suggest that these nonnative species are more sensitive to this local climate. These results provide insights to the adaptability, establishment, and geographic distribution of the nonnative Pinaceae.

Ants are ecologically important, environmentally sensitive, widespread, and abundant, yet ant assemblages of many habitats remain poorly understood. Ants in inland barrens of New York State (NY) barely have been studied, but the limited data suggest such habitats are likely to support uncommon ant species and high species density for the region. To increase knowledge of these assemblages, I systematically collected ants from three inland barrens systems in NY, to create species lists and measure species density. I also investigated how hiking trails — a common man-made disturbance — may be impacting ant assemblages in these early-successional, disturbance-dependent ecosystems. My data strongly indicate uncommonly high densities of ant species in NY pine barrens, including the most northern known occurrences of some species, and show that ant assemblage composition and species density are altered on hiking trails relative to managed barrens habitat bordering the trails. I conclude that monitoring ants on hiking trails could provide valuable information, particularly on disturbance-tolerant species, and an opportunity for visitor participation and citizen science programs that could detect additional rare species.