Dissertation
Faith, news, and truth: the Kingdom's crusade for social and economic justice in 1890s America
University of Iowa
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), University of Iowa
Autumn 2019
DOI: 10.17077/etd.005222
Abstract
The central argument of this dissertation is that dissident religious journalism played an important role in the early social gospel movement in American Christianity. Ministers who entered the field of print journalism in the 1890s sought to use the pulpit of the press to directly engage the public and prominent opinion leaders within the church. This study centers on these efforts in the context of one prominent religious publication of the time, The Kingdom. A unique paper edited by a cast of the central figures of the early social gospel movement, it illustrates how complex issues, and strenuous disagreements over those issues, were mediated through specific journalistic practices. This dissertation tells the story of the paper, the process by which it mediated differences in opinion, and its significance in the print media environment of the 1890s.
In addition to addressing basic details of the Kingdom’s existence and its place within the Protestant and nonreligious reform movements, the primary research questions in this study seek to understand the motivations that led the editors and contributors of the Kingdom to turn journalism in the first place. Why did they create alternative publications instead of utilizing more mainstream outlets? Answering these questions will entail close examination of the stated purposes of the paper and examination of how the editors and contributors understood and attempted to fulfill those purposes.
A second research question stems directly from the first and asks what void these journalists were trying to fill in relation to the mainstream press environment of the 1890s. The methods and practices utilized by these editors provides an independent model of journalism motivated by an alternative understanding of the relation between democracy, the social gospel, and public responsibility. By providing an example of a religiously-informed social ethic of news reporting, these papers “walked the walk” of their outspoken criticisms of the mainstream press. This analysis reveals an unconventional model of journalism that competed for popular attention.
I also compare the journalism of the Kingdom to the mainstream and religious papers of the period. The dissident Protestant press was situated at the intersection of many conflicting viewpoints that helped shape the media landscape at the time. Analyzing the impact of the complex cultural context of the Kingdom provides a fertile opportunity to describe in detail the development of social gospel ideas. Ministers were the primary editors and writers for the Kingdom, yet many non-clerical reformers like Henry Demarest Lloyd played significant roles in shaping the movement by contributing articles and providing material support. Many editors and leading figures of the dissident Protestant press maintained close contact with public thinkers outside the religious fold who were also writing and organizing on behalf of reform. Although their perspectives may have differed slightly, the network was largely one of mutual support. I argue that the Kingdom was one specific site that helped to facilitate these connections in the last decade of the nineteenth century.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Faith, news, and truth: the Kingdom's crusade for social and economic justice in 1890s America
- Creators
- John P Haman
- Contributors
- Frank D. Durham (Advisor)Daniel A. Berkowitz (Committee Member)Diana Fritz Cates (Committee Member)David Dowling (Committee Member)Daniel Lathrop (Committee Member)
- Resource Type
- Dissertation
- Degree Awarded
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), University of Iowa
- Degree in
- Mass Communication
- Date degree season
- Autumn 2019
- DOI
- 10.17077/etd.005222
- Publisher
- University of Iowa
- Number of pages
- ix, 277 pages
- Copyright
- Copyright 2019 John P Haman
- Language
- English
- Description bibliographic
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 268-277)
- Public Abstract (ETD)
The United States witnessed extreme income inequality in the 1890s. Business titans like John D. Rockefeller accumulated great fortunes while many immigrant factory laborers lived and worked in squalor. As new, liberal theologies were introduced into Protestant churches, an increasing number of ministers concerned with poverty and inequality began to believe that their duty as Christians mandated a more active role in social and political debates. They articulated a “social” approach to the gospel that provided scriptural justification for the church to play an active role in secular debates.
Many questioned the role of ministers in non-theological conversations and doubted their competence to evaluate an increasingly complex modern world. Reform-minded ministers countered these doubts by turning to journalism to establish their value as social commentators and to pursue solutions to social injustices. These efforts led to the creation of a rich environment of religious newspapers and journals that circulated new ideas about economic justice and promoted organizational efforts to bring together like-minded clerics.
The Kingdom was the most prominent of these newspapers in the 1890s and it is the subject of this dissertation. The Kingdom was headquartered in Grinnell, Iowa, and represented one of the most energetic social gospel organizations in the 1890s. The paper utilized unique journalistic practices to keep the movement together and to educate and edify its readers. This project describes how it accomplished these tasks and its significance in the print media environment of the 1890s.
- Academic Unit
- School of Journalism and Mass Communication
- Record Identifier
- 9983779598402771
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