The Ministers' War: John W. Mears, the Oneida Community, and the Crusade for Public Morality Contributor(s): Doyle, Michael (Author) |
|
ISBN: 0815635761 ISBN-13: 9780815635765 Publisher: Syracuse University Press OUR PRICE: $47.50 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: March 2018 |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - Biography & Autobiography | Religious - History | United States - State & Local - Middle Atlantic (dc, De, Md, Nj, Ny, Pa) - History | United States - 19th Century |
Dewey: B |
LCCN: 2017056043 |
Series: New York State |
Physical Information: 0.69" H x 6" W x 9" (1.15 lbs) 248 pages |
Themes: - Chronological Period - 19th Century - Religious Orientation - Christian - Geographic Orientation - New York - Cultural Region - Mid-Atlantic - Cultural Region - Northeast U.S. |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: Unbridled passions threatened nineteenth-century America, a vulnerable young nation already feeling beset by foreigners, corruption, and disease. Purifying crusaders like Hamilton College philosophy professor and Presbyterian minister John W. Mears mobilized to fight every sin and carnal lure, from liquor to free love. In Upstate New York's famed Oneida Community, Mears encountered his stiffest challenge. Oneida's founder and patriarch, John Humphrey Noyes, oversaw a radical Christian commune where men and women sexually mingled through the practice of complex marriage. While others struggled to dislodge the community that had evolved since 1848 into a successful business venture and congenial neighbor, it was Mears who, after years of trying, rallied New York's church and university leaders for a final, concerted anti-Oneida campaign. In The Ministers' War, Doyle traces the full story of Mears and the crusade against the Oneida Community. He explores the ways in which Mears's multipurpose zeal reflected the passions behind the nineteenth-century temperance movement, the fight against obscenity, and the public animus toward unconventional thought. As an author, political candidate, and controversialist, Mears was a prominent moralizer at a time when public morality seemed to be most at risk. |