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THE REFINEMENT OF RELIGIOUS PRACTICES IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Notre Dame in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Jeffrey L. Bain-Conkin George Marsden, Director Graduate Program in History Notre Dame, Indiana June 2014 Jeffrey L. Bain-Conkin 2014 THE REFINEMENT OF RELIGIOUS PRACTICES IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY Abstract by Jeffrey L. Bain-Conkin My dissertation recovers the nineteenth-century religious practices of Jews, Catholics, and Protestants in Louisville, Kentucky. Additionally, a comparative analysis of these religious practices reveals that by the end of the nineteenth century in Louisville, the public practices of some Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish congregations had moved toward a refined, formalized public religiosity, while other congregations in those traditions protested these changes. By refinement, I mean a conscious effort at beautifying spaces and material culture as well as the ordering and routinization of practices themselves. Many of Louisville’s religious congregations transformed eclectic, unsophisticated religiosities of the early nineteenth century into consciously urbane projections of their refinement. Jeffrey L. Bain-Conkin Louisville’s nineteenth-century history lends itself excellently to this type of comparative study on the religious practices of Catholics, Protestants, and Jews. The city’s demography and economy illustrated the westward migration of eastern populations in the post-Revolutionary and early republic and Louisville also represented growing regionalism and urbanization in the nineteenth-century United States. The pluralism of Louisville was remarkable in its mixture of regional origin, ethnicities, and races. The city had the ethnic European enclaves of a northern urban center, but also a substantial (slave and free) African American presence of a southern city. One result of this racial and ethnic diversity was a religious pluralism rich with a mixture of American, European, and “Americanized” religiosities. There were a variety of Catholic parishes, Jewish synagogues and temples, white Protestant churches of wide diversity, and African American churches of an impressive breadth. Two hundred and fifty local religious institutions emerged in Louisville, Kentucky, before 1900 With the emphasis on the religious practices of local institutions in nineteenth- century Louisville, my dissertation examines community formation, identity, sermons, death practices, hymnody, liturgy, and architecture. Thus, each chapter takes a specific topic (congregational formation, space and architecture, worship, death) and analyzes that topic throughout the entire nineteenth century for Louisville’s congregations. I focus on the most public and ordinary elements of religious practice in nineteenth-century Louisville. In the coming months, a free version of this dissertation will appear online and available through common web searching. For my adequate family: Kelly, Asher, and Yoder ii CONTENTS Figures..................................................................................................................................v Preface.............................................................................................................................. viii Introduction: The Refinement of Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish Religious Practices in Nineteenth-Century Louisville, Kentucky………………………………………………...1 I. A Protestant and a Jew Get on a Steamboat, Then Debate the Latter’s Jewishness…………………………………………………………………………1 II. Historiographic Perspective and Location……………………………………..3 III. Recovering the Religious Practices of the Nineteenth-Century United States........................................................................................................................8 IV. Making the Case for a Case Study of Nineteenth-Century Louisville, Kentucky…………………………………………………………………………10 V. On Categories and Caveats in This Study of Religious Practices…………….22 VI. The Organization of the Chapters……………………………………………24 Chapter I: The Rite Hand of Fellowship: Congregational Formation and Identity in Nineteenth-Century Louisville, Kentucky……………………………………………….27 I. The First Baptist Churches of Louisville………………………………………27 II. Congregational, Individual, and Denominational Histories…………………..33 III. The Laity as Formers of Congregations……………………………………...37 IV. Phase One (1780-1820): Louisville’s First Congregations………………….41 V. Phase Two (1820-1860): Louisville Congregations Before the Civil War…...45 V.i. New Religious Traditions Come to Louisville……………………...46 V.ii. Good Splits, Bad Splits, and Mergers: New Formation Methods….47 V.iii. Starting to Separate: Racial and Ethnic Congregations……………51 VI. Phase Three (1860-1900): Congregations in Postwar Louisville……………63 VI.i. Finishing the Separation of Congregations………………………...65 VI.ii. A New Method of Congregational Formation: Mission “Colonies”……………………………………………………..................76 VI.iii. From Proximity to Proxy: Location and Louisville’s Congregations……………………………………………………………81 iii Chapter II: Steeplechase: Religious Architecture and Public Spectacle in Nineteenth- Century Louisville……………………………………………………………………….89 I. Bloody Monday: Nativist Violence and Catholic Architecture in Louisville…89 II. Spatial Options for Louisville’s Congregations………………………………98 III. The Nineteenth-Century Goal: A Worship Room of One’s Own…………..104 III.i. Purchasing Another’s Religious Building………………………...114 III.ii. Building from Scratch…………………………………………….117 IV. Louisville’s Other Nineteenth-Century Revivals…………………………..121 V. The Interiors of Louisville’s Nineteenth-Century Religious Structures…….138 VI. Faith in Bricks and Mortar: The Sanctity of Louisville’s Religious Structures……………………………………………………………………….148 VII. Refinement of Place through Ritual and Celebration……………………...152 Chapter III: Worship Practices in Nineteenth-Century Louisville, Kentucky………….160 I. Reforming through Worship: A Nineteenth-Century Synagogue in Louisville……………………………………………………………………….160 II. The Standardization of Nineteenth-Century Worship……………………….169 III. No Shoes, No Service: Promoting Orderly Worship in Nineteenth-Century Louisville……………………………………………………………………….175 IV. The Un-Stripping of Altars and Pulpits: Worship Accoutrement in Louisville……………………………………………………………………….178 V. The Professionalization of Nineteenth-Century Worship in Louisville……..185 V.i. Improving Congregational Music………………………………….189 V.ii. Employing Musical Experts……………………………………….191 V.iii. Setting Apart the Choirs………………………………………….193 V.iv. The Standardization and Use of Printed Worship Materials……..195 V.v. The Proliferation of Organs……………………………………….199 V.vi. Changes in Nineteenth-Century Sermons………………………...204 Chapter IV: Graveyard Shifts: Death Practices in Nineteenth-Century Louisville, Kentucky………………………………………………………………………………..212 I. The Final Final Resting Place of George Rogers Clark (1752-1818, 1869)…212 II. Early Death Practices in Louisville and Their Precedents…………………..219 III. Changes in the Death Practices of Louisville’s Nineteenth-Century Protestants………………………………………………………………………223 III.i. Dying Well in Nineteenth-Century Louisville Protestantism……..224 III.ii. Protecting and Preserving the Body……………………………...229 III.iii. Remembering the Dead………………………………………….232 IV. Catholic Death Practices in Nineteenth-Century Louisville………………..238 V. Jewish Death Practices in Nineteenth-Century Louisville…………………..245 VI. “Fashion Stops Not With Human Life”: Commemorative Markers and Cemeteries for Louisville’s Protestants, Catholics, and Jews…………………..248 VI.i. Grave Markers: Monuments and Inscriptions…………………….248 VI.ii. The Changing Purposes and Locations of Burial-Grounds in Nineteenth-Century Louisville………………………………………….261 iv Conclusion: Refinement and Its Discontents in Late Nineteenth-Century Louisville Congregations…………………………………………………………………………..285 Selected Bibliography…………………………………………………………………..295 v FIGURES Figure 1: Population and Percentage Increase (by decade) In Louisville, Kentucky 1790- 1900…………………………………………………………….………...………12 Figure 2:Non-native Population and relative Percentage in Louisville, Kentucky, 1860- 1900……………………………………………………………..……………..…16 Figure 3:African-American Population and relative Percentage in Louisville, Kentucky, 1800-1900………………………………………………………………………..18 Figure 4: Population and Congregations in Nineteenth-Century Jefferson County, Kentucky……………………………………..…………………………………..33 Figure 5: Types of Congregational Formation (by decade) in Nineteenth-Century Jefferson County, Kentucky……………………………………………………...37 Figure 6: Congregations Formed in Jefferson County, Kentucky, 1780-1819……….…43 Figure 7:Locations of Congregations Formed in Jefferson County, Kentucky, 1780- 1819…………………………………………………………………..…………..44 Figure 8:Locations of Congregations Formed in Jefferson County, Kentucky, 1820- 1859……………………………………………………………..………………..60 Figure 9: Congregations Formed in Jefferson County, Kentucky, 1820-1859……….…61 Figure 10: White, Non-English-Speaking, and African-American Congregations Formed in Jefferson County, Kentucky, before 1900………………………………...…..75 Figure 11: The “Methodist Corridor” of Louisville, Showing the Locations of Several Methodist Congregations of Varying Ethnic, Racial, and Denominational Affiliations………………………………………………………………..……...75 Figure 12:Locations of Congregations Formed in Jefferson County, Kentucky, 1860- 1900………………………………………………………..……………………..78 Figure