ABSTRACT
New religions, including Mormonism, Adventism, Spiritualism, and various forms of New Thought and Transcendentalism, would soon diversify the American religious landscape like never before. In the South and West religious awakenings took place in camp meetings such as the one at Cane Ridge, Kentucky, in August 1801, where up to 25,000 people gathered together in the small frontier town to pray, fast, and listen to evangelistic sermons. Disestablishment paved the way for rational religion and skepticism, a part of religious landscape that has recently drawn much attention from historians. Historians have understood religion in early republic through several different interpretive lenses, but two of these lenses – consumerism and democratization – have had the most influence in the field. Some have suggested connections between the diverse and free-wheeling religious culture made possible by disestablishment and the market revolution. Evangelicals concerned with moral reform of American life concentrated much effort on religious education of children and young people through Sunday schools.
