Few American preachers have developed the type of national platform enjoyed by Henry Ward Beecher in the latter half of the nineteenth century. This dissertation examines Beecher's use of the pulpit as a rhetorical tool to achieve political and social change. Following an exploration of the factors which contributed to Beecher's personal and theological development, Beecher's preaching style and content are examined as they developed from his early Indiana pastorates to his forty-year pastorate at Plymouth Church in Brooklyn, New York. Particular attention is given to Beecher's concern for applying ethical principles to political and social issues. Beecher's pulpit rhetoric in three areas receives analysis: slavery, women's rights, and economic issues. On the latter topic area it is seen that, while for most of his career Beecher was a social conservative unable to deal with the changing American economic scene, by the last decade of his life he had come to grips with the dangers of growing concentrations of corporate and economic power and the need for labor organization to offer a balance to such power. The concluding chapter discusses Beecher's significance to the development of the Social Gospel movement in American Protestantism, and particularly his influence on two early leaders of that movement, Washington Gladden and Lyman Abbott. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 44-03, Section: A, page: 0783. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1983.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_75075 |
| Contributors | DUDUIT, JAMES MICHAEL., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 194 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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