This dissertation offers an answer to the question of how the Midwest, specifically the middle Mississippi Valley, came to be the American heartland. In this dissertation, I argue that evangelicalism was instrumental in the making of the Midwest as America's heartland. I propose that evangelicals in the region promoted an image of their homeland as the 'center' of America as a way of claiming the region as the heartland. By doing so, they were also making claims about the religious and cultural identity of the nation. Throughout American history, groups have contested the meaning of America. During the nineteenth century, regional groups specifically contested that meaning on the grounds of regional commercial, social, and cultural interests. Evangelicals in the Mississippi Valley were no different. They promoted their idea of America and of its heartland through two periodicals published in St. Louis, Missouri, during the middle of the nineteenth century: the Central Baptist and the Methodist Central Christian Advocate. Specifically, I narrate the ways that evangelical religion offered the communicative tools for these periodicals to reflect the development of the idea of America's heartland as regional and national self-fashioning. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Religion in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree
of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester, 2011. / June 1, 2011. / Includes bibliographical references. / John Corrigan, Professor Directing Dissertation; Edward Gray, University Representative; Amanda Porterfield, Committee Member; Amy Koehlinger, Committee Member.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_253295 |
| Contributors | Price, Barton (authoraut), Corrigan, John (professor directing dissertation), Gray, Edward (university representative), Porterfield, Amanda (committee member), Koehlinger, Amy (committee member), Department of Religion (degree granting department), Florida State University (degree granting institution) |
| Publisher | Florida State University, Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, text |
| Format | 1 online resource, computer, application/pdf |
| Rights | This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s). The copyright in theses and dissertations completed at Florida State University is held by the students who author them. |
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