ABSTRACT
The British colonies witnessed a series of religious revivals in the middle decades of the eighteenth century. This Great Awakening roiled congregations from New England to Georgia and stirred powerful emotions from the shores of the Atlantic to the far side of the Appalachians. In the aftermath of this period of revival and reaction, early Americans would be left with both a wider array of spiritual choices and a diminished sense of religious unity. Minister, theologian, and later president of what would become Princeton University; Jonathan Edwards was one of the great figures associated with the Great Awakening. Historians sometimes speak of George Whitefield as a kind of Elvis Presley of the Great Awakening. The learned eloquence of Edwards and Franklin was unrepresentative of most eighteenth-century Americans. The comparatively unrefined diary of "Connecticut farm woman" Hannah Heaton provides a rare but invaluable window into how ordinary people experienced events such as the Great Awakening.
