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.

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

Western Reserve (Ohio).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (257 p.)

Place of Publication:

New York : Columbia University Press, c2003.

Language Note:

English

System Details:

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Summary:

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. While the political implications of the mapping of American expansion have been much studied, this is the first major study of the close and complex relationship between mapping and missionizing on the American frontier. Moral Geography provides a fresh approach to understanding nineteenth-century Protestant home missions in Ohio's Western Reserve. Through the use of maps, letters, religious tracts, travel narratives, and geographical texts, Amy DeRogatis recovers 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 life on the early American frontier.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1. The Benevolent Design

Chapter 2. Models of Piety

Chapter 3. The Moral Garden of the Western World

Chapter 4. Geography Made Easy

Chapter 5. A Beacon in the Wilderness

Conclusion: Moral Geography

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

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

ISBN:

9780231508599

023150859X

OCLC:

828303851