Marketplace of eloquence: nineteenth-century Calvinism and the rhetoric of oratorical culture

Abstract

This dissertation concentrates on an important but largely unexplored area of the history of nineteenth-century American rhetoric. An examination of early nineteenth-century journals, sermons, and course syllabi written by prominent members of the Calvinist clergy, especially the Bartlet Professors of Sacred Rhetoric at Andover Seminary, shows how an emerging oratorical culture in the United States impacted the rhetorical choices of the Calvinist clergy. Scholars generally tell the story of the history of rhetoric in nineteenth-century America from the perspective of undergraduate colleges, omitting the contributions to rhetoric made by clergy in seminaries. But some of the most important work in the field of rhetoric, especially in the early part of the century, was done at post-graduate theological schools where students were being trained for the oratorical profession of preaching. This study aims to enlarge our understanding of how the theory and practice of rhetoric changed in the face of democraticizing forces that contributed to a distinctly oratorical culture in the Early Republic. Sometimes, as in the case of the Andover Calvinists, this democratic impulse limited the privileges of formerly dominant groups. During the years following the American Revolution, Calvinist clergy saw their privileged place in American public life erode. In order to combat this trend of declining influence and to propagate their religious message, the clergy turned to the study and practice of rhetoric. The rhetorical strategies adopted by the clergy included recognizing the social importance of a series of an unexpected religious revivals that occurred in the decade following the American revolution; institutionalizing the gains they had made in the revivals of the 1790s by establishing Andover Seminary, which became a leading site of rhetorical education; advocating the study of classical rhetoric in order to combat the gains made by popular camp-meeting revivalists; and becoming leaders in the influential elocutionary movement in order to compete with popular orators. All these activities helped to define the New Divinity's position in the Second Great Awakening and to establish the study of rhetoric as central to a minister's education.