ABSTRACT
The rural church has always been a vital institution for American country people. Worship was an integral part of life for the most groups of Native Americans. Likewise, religion was foremost in the minds of many of the first Europeans in Spanish America, New France, and New England. As Europeans moved to the interior of the continent, French and Spanish priests (and later, Methodist circuit riders) went with them. Even in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, most farmers did not work on Sunday, except during the most critical times of planting and harvesting. The day was usually taken up with attendance at religious services and visiting with friends and family. Robert Swierenga has described the many community roles performed by the rural church:
The church was more than a religious meeting place; it was a cultural nest, integrating families, social classes, and nationality groups. It gave members a cultural identity and status and socialized them into the community .... [Rural churches] provided charity and aid in times of sickness and disaster, educated children, offered recreation and leisure activities, facilitated marriages, consoled the grieving, buried the dead in the adjacent cemetery, and sought to legislate morality through political
action .... Among immigrant groups, churches actually built communities by attracting newcomers. Rural life truly was church centered. 2
These activities persisted well into the twentieth century. Members of the Country Life Commission stated that "the church is fundamentally a necessary institution in country life."3 In 1926, there were still over 150,000 churches in rural areas of the United States.4
