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  • The First Great Awakening in Colonial American Newspapers: A Shifting Story by Lisa Smith
  • Carla Mulford
Lisa Smith. The First Great Awakening in Colonial American Newspapers: A Shifting Story (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2013). Pp. 183. Figures, notes, appendices, bibliography, index. Paper, $32.99.

Lisa Herb Smith closely analyzes the phenomenon called the First Great Awakening as it played out in colonial newspapers during the decade from 1739 to 1748. To define and give shape to her collected data, Smith identifies three important stages in the First Great Awakening: the years 1739–41, when the revival could be traced by following newspaper accounts of Rev. George Whitefield’s tour of the colonies; 1741–43, the “most contentious years,” when (with Whitefield gone) “both revivalists and their critics were attempting to define the movement and influence public opinion” in the newspapers; and 1744–48, the years marking Whitefield’s second tour of the colonies, a period of marked decline in news concern about the movement (7). Smith highlights shifts that occurred across time or within individuals’ views about the awakening, showing how the revival was, across time, presented by the majority of newspapers she discusses, how the newspaper reportage differed in different regions, and how the central personalities of the revival were represented.

The first chapter, “Reporting the Awakening,” argues that newspapers fueled public fascination with the revivalism of George Whitefield and fueled as well different communities’ anticipation of his arrival. Because of the emotional and enthusiastic responses among some participants in the revival, some newspapers treated revivalist news as major news, reprinting stories of Whitefield’s movements across the colonies. After the initial news furor about Whitefield’s presence, some newspapers began to offer negative views about Whitefield and revivalism, after Whitefield had departed. Smith points out two features of news reports after 1741: negative reports by far outnumbered positive ones, and letters debating the quality and reliability of faith practices resulting from revivalism dominated newspaper reports (23). Smith’s evaluation of the situation is that “Whitefield’s criticisms of established church traditions and ‘dead’ religious practice created a backlash” against him (22), and this criticism, coupled with anxiety about “the impact of the revival on the colonial social order” (29), led to a significant change in how lay preachers would be treated in some communities. In fact, Smith reports, “some colonies outlawed itinerant and lay preaching” entirely (32). Eventually, the reportage faded, but for a time, religious news—pro and con revivalism—dominated newspaper reporting, so much so that Benjamin [End Page 216] Franklin could remark in his autobiography that “it seem’d as if all the World were growing Religious” (36). For those interested in Pennsylvania history, the book’s discussion of Franklin and Whitefield will be useful.

Chapter 2 recounts the “Regional Paper Wars” that took place during the era of revivalism. By tracking the local “paper wars,” as they were called, Smith can outline the central controversies caused by the awakening within the different communities. In some well-populated areas, “party papers” could afford to take particular viewpoints and hold to them (the Boston Gazette in favor of revivalism, the Boston Evening-Post against). In other areas, where papers were fewer and the population more dispersed, partiality toward a particular view could have sunk the paper. In New England several issues dominated newspaper discussions. From 1739 through 1743, the primary concern about the revival arose over itineracy and whether itinerant preachers ought to be permitted to operate. From 1745 to 1747, another topic emerged as more crucial—what to do about congregations broken apart by itinerant preachers. A third element of concern arose thereafter, this time around sacramental practices of baptism and of ministers’ ordination (56–57). In the middle colonies—which Smith seems to identify as New York through Virginia—where there was greater diversity in religious practice, there was likewise a more tolerant disposition toward the awakening, with the strongest support emanating from Philadelphia, where Benjamin Franklin’s Pennsylvania Gazette favorably reported on Whitefield and tended to dominate the news scene. Even so, Smith says, the middle colonies did offer some concern about the revival as it continued, with the key area...

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