Morality and the mail in nineteenth-century America / Wayne E. Fuller.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Fuller, Wayne E. (Wayne Edison), 1919-2004.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Postal service--United States--History--19th century.

Postal service.

Sunday legislation--United States--History--19th century.

Sunday legislation.

History.

United States.

Physical Description:

xiii, 264 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Urbana : University of Illinois Press, [2003]

Summary:

Morality and the Mail in Nineteenth-Century America explores the evolution of the postal innovation that sparked a communication revolution. Wayne E. Fuller examines how evangelical Protestants, the nation's dominant religious group, struggled against the transformations in American society wrought by the postal revolution, transformations that they believed threatened to paganize the Christian nation they were determined to save. Largely ignored by historians, this facet of American religious and social development spans the national culture. Drawing on House and Senate documents, postmasters general reports, and the Congressional Record, as well as sermons, speeches, and articles from numerous religious and secular periodicals, Fuller skillfully illuminates the problems a changed postal system posed for evangelicals. Among them were Sunday mail delivery, Sunday newspapers, and the avalanche of unseemly material that improved mail service and reduced postage prices brought into American homes. Fuller offers perspectives on the church and state controversy, as well as on publishing, politics, birth control, the lottery, censorship, Congress's postal power, and the waning of evangelical Protestant influence at the end of the nineteenth century.

Contents:

1. Mail on the Sabbath 1

2. Sabbath Mail and the Separation of Church and State 22

3. Changing the Sabbath to a Day of Rest 49

4. Sunday Newspapers and the Day of Rest 78

5. The Post Office, Protestants, and Pornography in the Gilded Age 98

6. The Attack upon Impure Literature in the Mail 129

7. The Post Office, Postage, and the Paperback Controversy 148

8. For the Preservation of the American Family 167

9. The Postal Power, Protestants, and the Lottery 192

10. Immoral Mail and the Enforcement of Evangelical Morality 222.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0252028120

OCLC:

50204124