Building the Old Time Religion: Women Evangelists in the Progressive Era [Hardcover]

2015 Smith/Wynkoop Book Award presented by the Wesleyan Theological Society

2014 Choice Outstanding Academic Title

During the Progessive Era, a period of unprecedented ingenuity, women evangelists built the old time religion with brick and mortar, uniforms and automobiles, fresh converts and devoted prot?g?s. Across America, entrepreneurial women founded churches, denominations, religious training schools, rescue homes, rescue missions, and evangelistic organizations. Until now, these intrepid women have gone largely unnoticed, though their collective yet unchoreographed decision to build institutions in the service of evangelism marked a seismic shift in American Christianity.

In this ground-breaking study, Priscilla Pope-Levison dusts off the unpublished letters, diaries, sermons, and yearbooks of these pioneers to share their personal tribulations and public achievements. The effect is staggering. With an uncanny eye for essential details and a knack for historical nuance, Pope-Levison breathes life into not just one or two of these womenbut two dozen.

I really enjoyed this book. It is well organized, well written, and full of interesting detailsa sign, no doubt, of many hours of research. . . . Scholars of American Christianity, the Progressive Era, the holiness movements, and American women's history (religious or otherwise) would all benefit from Pope-Levison's work in Building the Old Time Religion. Pope-Levison, professor of theology at Seattle Pacific University, has been fascinated with the history of Christian women for decades. The theologian, author, and ordained United Methodist minister shares her discoveries unearthed over the last 20 years through painstaking research in Building the Old Time Religion: Women Evangelists in the Progressive Era.Building the Old Timefeatures in-depth accounts of the lives, accomplishments, and controversies of influential Christian leaders such as Amanda Berry Smith, Evangelil: