Empire of print : evangelical power in an age of mass media /
How did evangelicals exert power in nineteenth-century America? Empire of Print: Evangelical Power in an Age of Mass Media offers a fresh answer by examining the American Tract Society (ATS), the largest religious publisher of the period, which sought to evangelize the expanding nation through mass...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | eBook |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
New York, NY :
Oxford University Press,
[2025]
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Connect to the full text of this electronic book |
| Summary: | How did evangelicals exert power in nineteenth-century America? Empire of Print: Evangelical Power in an Age of Mass Media offers a fresh answer by examining the American Tract Society (ATS), the largest religious publisher of the period, which sought to evangelize the expanding nation through mass media. Between its founding in 1825 and the onset of the Civil War in 1861, the ATS distributed an astounding 5.6 billion printed pages across the United States. Evangelical leaders understood, however, that flooding the country with religious tracts would not be enough to achieve their goal of mass evangelization. Instead, they developed an extensive media infrastructure designed to ensure that their messages reached readers effectively across empire-sized distances. This book argues that evangelical power in this period not only stemmed from the content of the message but was dependent on the adaptive material and logistical assemblages that facilitated its widespread circulation and reading. Though noncoercive, media infrastructure was an effective form of power that shaped how, when, and why readers engaged with evangelical texts. Particularly important in an era of territorial expansion, media infrastructure changed minds, saved souls, and extended evangelicalism's reach across the United States. |
|---|---|
| Physical Description: | 1 online resource : illustrations. |
| Audience: | Specialized. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: | 9780197608135 0197608132 9780197608111 0197608116 |