Book Reviews

Book Reviews . Douglas Winiarski, Darkness Falls on the Land of Light: Experiencing Religious Awakenings in Eighteenth-Century New England. P. Jeffrey Potash 168 Gary G. Shattuck, Green Mountain Opium Eaters: A History of Early Addiction in Vermont. John A. Leppman 170 Glenn Suokko, Shelburne Farms: House, Gardens, Farm and Barns. Curtis B. Johnson 173 Gordon Hayward, Greek Epic: The Latchis Family & the New England Theater Empire They Built. Charles Fish 175 Peter Gould, Horse-Drawn Yogurt: Stories from Total Loss Farm. Bill Schubart 178 Kate Daloz, We Are as Gods: Back to the Land in the 1970s on the Quest for a New America. D. Gregory Sanford 180 Philip Baruth, Senator Leahy: A Life in Scenes. Chris Graff 182 More About Vermont History Compiled by Paul A. Carnahan 185 Book Reviews . Darkness Falls on the Land of Light: Experiencing Religious Awakenings in Eighteenth-Century New England By Douglas Winiarski (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017, pp. 606, $49.95). ew England’s “First Great Awakening” (1735-1743) has long been Nrecognized for its fiery sermons, itinerant firebrands, and “surpris- ing works of God.” Orderly revivals originally spearheaded by Jona- than Edwards and other established Congregational clergy champi- oned a rekindling of religious piety among a traditional audience otherwise preoccupied with worldly pursuits. With the arrival of itinerants who progressively insisted on their ability to distinguish between true and false converts, the intentional dynamics of religious commu- nity (re)building in the early Awakening fell victim to a divisive rancor that permanently fractured New England’s “Standing Order.” Douglas Winiarski’s hypothesis in Darkness Falls on the Land of Light, that the struggle “transformed the once-puritan churches from inclusive communities of interlocking parishes and families into exclu- sive networks of gifted spiritual leaders” (pp. 19-20), seems far less original than the scholarly process by which he arrives there. His im- pressive bibliography identifies more than 200 manuscript collections he consulted over twenty years of research. In addition, Winiarski painstakingly worked as a “new social historian,” drawing upon a vari- ety of local records (church, town, vital, and familial) to reconstruct patterns of religious affiliation across eight New England parishes and identifying multiple traits of male and female converts before and dur- ing the revivals. To this effort, he then adds a whole new dimension of analysis by working through more than 1,200 church admission “rela- tions” (required spiritual testimonials) from dozens of towns. Vermont History Vol. 85, No. 2 (Summer/Fall 2017): 168-185. © 2017 by the Vermont Historical Society. ISSN: 0042-4161; on-line ISSN: 1544-3043 169 . It is the latter set of materials that contributes most powerfully to Winiarski’s engaging narrative, organized around a sequence of five large charters or parts. Part One, “Godly Walkers” (pp. 23-130), por- trays the vast majority of pre-Awakening (1680-1740) conversion rela- tions he examined (disproportionately involving adult married women) as conventionally “contractual” in form, “orderly,” and “inclusive.” Part Two, “In a Flame” (pp. 131-206), highlights the ability of the “Grand Itinerants” to target a new demographic (younger male and female) and to inculcate in them a new vocabulary that described the primacy and suddenness of their conversion experiences involving an unexpected “Infusion of the Holy Spirit.” Part Three, “Exercised Bod- ies, Impulsive Bibles” (pp. 207-284 ), this reader’s favorite, describes a magistrate’s fear that a belligerent young Boston convert, Martha Robinson, was likely “possessed by the Devill,” and underscores the difficulties that many traditional clergy experienced as they encoun- tered ever increasing numbers of revival converts whose experiences included violent physical manifestations, visions, trances, and dreams. In Part Four, “Pentacost and Protest” (pp. 287-364), the story of later and more radical itinerants spearheaded by James Davenport highlights a similarly explosive pattern among many new converts to both favor and, in many cases, to become lay preachers and exhorters, thereby fostering confrontations with established clerics. Met with dis- ruption, disrepect, and discord, clergymen like the Rev. John Lowell of Newburyport, Massachusetts (introduced in Part Five, “Travels,” pp. 367-506), who had once been “extremly taken with the new Scheme” of the revivals, forcefully and abruptly reversed himself and con- demned the revivals as a “Day of temptation” rather than a “day of il- lumination” (p. 370). With accusations flying from all sides, the divi- sions continued to grow. By the eve of the American Revolution, New England’s religious landscape boasted “Old Lights” as well as “New Lights” and dozens of Separatist congregations were renouncing infant baptism in declaring themselves Baptist churches. Vermont readers will likely be particularly interested in Winiarski’s treatment of the Fay family of Westborough, Massachusetts, described in the early pages of Part Five. John, James, and Steven Fay, awak- ened in the Whitefield revivals and transformed into “outspoken and independent-minded religious enthusiasts” (p. 386), were leaders in the initial settlement of Bennington in 1762. They were confident that newly opened and fertile frontier soils offered Separatists the opportu- nity to escape the repression of the existing “Standing Order” and to shape a future of their choosing. Fully three-quarters of Bennington’s 170 . early settlers were affiliated with the Bennington church. What “should have been a landmark event” (p. 394) in Congregational history, however, quickly foundered in the face of internal squabbling and fractiousness over sermons, practices, and individual callings. Ben- nington’s future, like that of Vermont, would be one of competition between Christian sects (e.g., Baptists, Congregationalists, Methodists, Episcopalians, Unitarians and Universalists) as well as between religious practice and secularity. Darkness Falls is a superb albeit challenging read. It is original in its method and succeeds both in informing broad and meaningful patterns of American cultural experience while resurrecting forgotten individu- als and capturing the depth and breadth of their human experiences. It is a must read for any student of history who seeks to understand the powerful imprint of religion on the course of our democratic experience. P. Jeffrey Potash Jeff Potash is a former Professor of History at Trinity College (Vt.), a “new social historian,” and co-author with Michael Sherman and Gene Sessions of Freedom and Unity: A History of Vermont (2004). Green Mountain Opium Eaters: A History of Early Addiction in Vermont By Gary G. Shattuck (Charleston, S.C.: The History Press, 2017, pp. 175, paper, $21.99). ere is a scenario that may seem familiar. There is widespread rec- Hognition that addiction to opiate drugs is a serious health problem in Vermont. Much blame for this dilemma is given to the medical pro- fession, which has incautiously prescribed opiates to patients seeking pain relief. The excessive promotional activities of companies that make dangerous drugs persuade both doctors and patients that the products are safer and more useful than they really are. The art and science of medicine fall short in efforts to treat addicted people. Gov- ernment sometimes expresses its desire to help the situation, but is not quite sure how to do so, and often seems to be dithering. Doctors aren’t happy when it looks as if their therapeutic decision making will be second-guessed by a government entity. This is, of course, a rough summary of a public discussion that has 171 . been prominent in Vermont in the past couple of decades, highlighted by Governor Peter Shumlin’s January 8, 2014, State of the State ad- dress to the legislature, which, unusually for such addresses, made this crisis its single dominant concern. It is also a rough summary of a problem that plagued the health of Vermont’s communities throughout the nineteenth century. It is that century that Gary Shattuck’s excellent new book takes as its focus. (Shattuck published an abbreviated ver- sion of this material as “Opium Eating in Vermont: ‘A Crying Evil of the Day’” in Vermont History 83 [Summer/Fall 2015]: 157-192.) There are several intertwined stories here, and they are not nearly as pleasant as the romantic view of Old Vermont in which the menfolk enjoyed a nip of rum at a barn raisin’, the womenfolk sometimes took a spoonful of Paine’s Celery Compound to help with the vapors, and the doctor came in his buggy and always had something good for what ailed you. Shattuck traces the commerce of opium, first in its raw form (gener- ally imported from Asia Minor), in due course refined to morphine, and by the end of the nineteenth century also available as heroin. (The last was initially marketed as a non-addictive cough medicine.) Medi- cal science, such as it was, had some concept of what doses of these medications were reasonably safe and effective, but doctors poorly un- derstood such concepts as tolerance, whereby a regular user of an opiate gets utterly inadequate relief from a dose that might help a non-user. Prescribing and controlling the use of opiates was not restricted to physicians with any standard qualifications, because through most of the nineteenth century Vermont had no effective licensure law. (Nei- ther did most states, but Vermont was slower than most in developing licensure.) Many people presenting themselves as physicians had little training in what was known of pharmacology. It is not unreasonable to point out here that opium and morphine were on a very short list of drugs available in the nineteenth century that actually had some bene- ficial effect. There were anesthetic gases such as nitrous oxide and chloroform (which were also abused); quinine (which had modest ben- efit for malaria but was useless for the myriad other febrile illnesses for which it was prescribed); digitalis (whose use for heart failure has taken a significant downturn only in the past generation); and some laxatives.

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