Includes bibliographical references (pages 251-267) and index.
Contents
"Is the laborer worthy of his hire?" : Christianity and class in antebellum Chicago -- "Undefiled Christianity" : the rise of a working-class social gospel -- "It pays to go to church" : ministers, "the mob," and the scramble for working-class souls -- "With the prophets of old" : working people's challenge to the Gilded Age church -- "The divorce between labor and the church" : working people strike out on their own in 1894 Chicago -- "To Christianize Christianity" : labor on the move in turn-of-the-century Chicago -- "Social Christianity becomes official" : the rise of a middle-class social gospel.
Summary
Carter advances a new interpretation of the origins of American Social Christianity. While historians have often attributed the rise of the Social Gospel to middle-class ministers, seminary professors, and social reformers, he places working people at the very center of the story. Leading readers into the thick of late-19th-century Chicago's tumultuous history, Carter shows that countless working-class believers participated in the heated debates over the implications of Christianity for industrializing society, often with as much fervor as they did in other contests over wages and the length of the workday.
