Archibald Alexander and the Use of Books: Theological Education and Print Culture in the Early Republic

In the early nineteenth century, as part of a movement to Christianize the early American republic through education and persuasion, evangelical Christians developed a new type of theological school and an extensive theological print culture. The post-baccalaureate schools they established, usually called theological seminaries, were designed to be situated at the top of the educational system and to relate the Bible to all other fields of inquiry. The faculties, graduates, and publications of these schools influenced the content and formation of an allied Bibliocentric print culture. This paper highlights formative connections between theological education and print culture in the early republic by focusing on the life and literary work of Archibald Alexander (1772-1851), the founding professor of Princeton Theological Seminary and a prolific and prominent theological author during the first half of the nineteenth century.