Hymns and hymnbooks as American historical and cultural icons.
Hymns and hymnbooks as American historical and cultural icons.
This work is a study of the importance of Protestant hymns in defining America and American religion. It explores the underappreciated influence of hymns in shaping many spheres of personal and corporate life as well as the value of hymns for studying religious life. Distinguishing features of this volume are studies of the most popular hymns (“Amazing Grace,” “O, For a Thousand Tongues to Sing,” “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name”), with attention to the ability of such hymns to reveal, as they are altered and adapted, shifts in American popular religion. The book also focuses attention on the role hymns play in changing attitudes about race, class, gender, economic life, politics, and society.
| Introduction |
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| I. The History in a Hymn |
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1. "Amazing Grace": The History of a Hymn and a Cultural Icon |
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3 | (17) |
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2. The Methodist National Anthem: "O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing" and the Development of American Methodism |
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20 | (23) |
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3. "All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name": Significant Variations on a Significant Theme |
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43 | (34) |
| II. Hymns and Hymnbooks as Cultural Icons |
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4. Textual Editing and the "Making" of Hymns in Nineteenth-Century America |
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77 | (21) |
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5. Textual Changes in Popular Occasional Hymns Found in American Evangelical Hymnals |
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98 | (24) |
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6. Indices: More Than Meets the I |
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122 | (30) |
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7. Fanny Crosby, William Doane, and the Making of Gospel Hymns in the Late Nineteenth Century |
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152 | (23) |
| III. Understanding the Classical Era of American Protestantism through Hymns |
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8. Heritage and Hymnody: Richard Allen and the Making of African Methodism |
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175 | (19) |
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9. Singing Pilgrims: Hymn Narratives of a Pilgrim Community's Progress from This World to That Which Is to Come, 1830-1890 |
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194 | (20) |
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10. Children of the Heavenly King: Hymns in the Religious and Social Experience of Children, 1780-1850 |
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214 | (21) |
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11. Domesticity in American Hymns, 1820-1870 |
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Susan VanZanten Gallagher |
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235 | (18) |
| Contributors |
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253 | (2) |
| Index |
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255 | |
Mark A. Noll is McManis Chair of Christian Thought at Wheaton College and coeditor with Edith L. Blumhofer of Singing the Lord's Song in a Strange Land: Hymnody in the History of North American Protestantism. Edith L. Blumhofer is Director of the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals, Professor of History at Wheaton College, and author of Aimee Semple McPherson: Everybody's Sister.
