New York's Burned-over District

In New York's Burned-over District, Spencer W. McBride and Jennifer Hull Dorsey invite readers to experience the early American revivals and reform movements through the eyes of the revivalists and the reformers themselves.

Between 1790 and 1860, the mass migration of white settlers into New York State contributed to a historic Christian revival. This renewed spiritual interest and fervor occurred in particularly high concentration in central and western New York where men and women actively sought spiritual awakening and new religious affiliation. Contemporary observers referred to the region as "burnt" or "infected" with religious enthusiasm; historians now refer to as the Burned-over District.

New York's Burned-over District highlights how Christian revivalism transformed the region into a critical hub of social reform in nineteenth-century America. An invaluable compendium of primary sources, this anthology revises standard interpretations of the Burned-over District and shows how the putative grassroots movements of the era were often coordinated and regulated by established religious leaders.

Spencer W. McBride is Associate Managing Historian of the Joseph Smith Papers. He is the author of Pulpit and Nation and Joseph Smith for President, and coeditor of Contingent Citizens.

Jennifer Hull Dorsey is Professor of History and founding Director of Siena College's McCormick Center for the Study of the American Revolution. She is the author of Hirelings.

By focusing on documentary evidence rather than traditional narrative history, McBride and Dorsey allow an immersive... exploration of the period.

Monica L. Mercado, Colgate University:

New York's Burned-over District has long needed a modern re-assessment. This well written and engaging collection expertly centers studies of eighteenth and nineteenth century religious revival and reform movements in New York State.

Thomas A. Chambers, Canisus College, author of Memories of War:

Carefully organized and persuasive, New York's Burned Over District makes a compelling case for the importance of the Burned-Over District in American history. This documentary reader on religious revivals in that region during the early-19th century uses a combination of printed and manuscript sources to covers a broad range of revivals that deserve a closer look.