Moral geography : maps, missionaries, and the American frontier / Amy DeRogatis.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

DeRogatis, Amy.

Series:

Religion and American culture (New York, N.Y.)

Religion and American culture

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Missionary Society of Connecticut--History--19th century.

Missionary Society of Connecticut.

Missions--Ohio--Western Reserve--History--19th century.

Missions.

Christianity and geography--Ohio--Western Reserve--History--19th century.

Christianity and geography.

Congregational churches--Connecticut--Missions--Ohio--Western Reserve--History--19th century.

Congregational churches.

Presbyterian Church--Connecticut--Missions--Ohio--Western Reserve--History--19th century.

Presbyterian Church.

History.

Western Reserve (Ohio)--Church history--19th century.

Western Reserve (Ohio).

Ohio--Western Reserve.

Physical Description:

xii, 242 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

New York : Columbia University Press, [2003]

Summary:

Amy DeRogatis draws on maps, letters, religious tracts, travel narratives, and geographical texts to recover the struggles of settlers, land surveyors, missionaries, and geographers as they sought to reconcile their hopes and expectations for a Promised Land with the realities of the early American frontier. "Moral Geography" traces the development of a moral basis for American expansionism, as Protestant missionaries, using biblical language and metaphors, imaginatively conjoined the cultivation of souls with the cultivation of land, and made space sacred.

Contents:

1. The Benevolent Design: Mapping the Landscape 15

Mappers and Missionaries 15

The Connecticut Land Company: Mapping 21

"In regard to the Heathen on our borders": Erasing the Natives 32

The Connecticut Missionary Society: Missionizing 35

"Sprightly towns" and "numerous churches which gem the whole landscape": Spatial Nostalgia 41

"The most benevolent designs": Missionary Publications 47

2. Models of Piety: Protestant Missionaries on the Frontier 61

"I find I can preach, if I can ride": Missionary Letters 66

"Difficulties inseparable to a family": Age, Marital Status, and Missions 74

"I have no prospect of being popular": Social Status and Missionary Labor 77

"Book knowledge is not all": The Heart, Not the Head 81

"Born and raised in the woods": Homegrown Missionaries 84

3. The Moral Garden of the Western World: Bodies, Towns, and Families 90

"Nurseries of piety": Body, Town, and Family 93

"A considerable phalanx of infidelity": Religious Rivalry and the Body 101

"Scattered promiscuously over the face of the country": Town Planning and Moral Order 111

"One great step towards a state of barbarism": Family and Home Order 120

4. Geography Made Easy: Geographies and Travel Literature 127

Geography Made Easy: Mapping and Moralizing 130

Domestic Travel Narratives 135

Fairy-Tale Reports: Western Reserve Travel Literature 142

A Correct View: New Connecticut as the Promised Land 152

5. A Beacon in the Wilderness: Moral Inscriptions on the Landscape 157

The Oberlin Colony and Institute 159

Building Up Society: Missionary Institutions 166

Ecclesiastical Outlaws 174

Moral and Spatial Order 178

Conclusion: Moral Geography 181.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [217]-234) and index.

ISBN:

023112788X

0231127898

OCLC:

50479279