From maritime Canada to the Carolina backcountry, New England to the Illinois prairies, Protestants in British North America and the new United States influenced by the evangelical awakenings of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were known as the "people called New Lights." This occasional blog features news, reviews, and research notes, along with dispatches from the archives and edited transcriptions of notable, obscure, and downright quirky manuscripts chronicling the religious beliefs, practices, and experiences of the people called New Lights from 1730 to 1850.
Kathryn Gin Lum's acclaimed Damned Nation: Hell in America from the Revolution to Reconstruction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014) provides a fascinating itinerary for readers seeking to navigate the sprawling religious landscape of the early American republic. Check out my review in Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture. Then read Gin Lum's deeply researched and beautifully written book!