For the children's souls: Child, church and community in Indiana, 1801–1851

Kevin L Gooding, Purdue University

Abstract

By examining the religious education of children in six Indiana towns—Delphi, Evansville, Lafayette, Madison, Richmond, and Rising Sun—this study attempts to illuminate the attitudes of the English-speaking, Protestant parents of these communities toward the rapid changes then occurring in each town. Improved transportation networks brought both population increases and greater access to goods produced elsewhere and distant markets for local goods. New ideas, new opportunities, and new goods presented religious parents with the task of how to teach their children to reap the benefits of their towns’ inclusion in a growing capitalist society, while avoiding the spiritual dangers contained therein. Within the context of the church, the Sunday school, and home-based family worship, these adults accomplished this by instilling in their impressionable children the habits of industry and economy, reverence for the Sabbath, and teaching them how to make correct choices regarding friends, associates, and amusements. In addition, early Indiana remained a dangerous place in which to grow to adulthood, as a spectrum of diseases claimed a disproportionate number of children under the age of ten. By utilizing the image of the Pious Dying Child, Hoosier parents kept the specter of childhood death before their children’s eyes as an encouragement to seek conversion as early in life as possible.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Lambert, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Religious history|American history|Early childhood education|Religious education

Off-Campus Purdue Users:
To access this dissertation, please log in to our
proxy server
.

Share

COinS