LOST: AMERICAN EVANGELICALS IN THE PUBLIC SQUARE, 1925-1955 By Patrick Daniel Jackson Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Vanderbilt University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in History December, 2012 Nashville, Tennessee Approved: Professor Gary Gerstle Professor Sarah E. Igo Professor Dennis C. Dickerson Professor James Hudnut-Beumler Copyright © 2012 by Patrick Daniel Jackson All Rights Reserved To Clio iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS A finished dissertation is a wonderful thing. It takes a long time to write one, and I don't think it can be done without a fairly sophisticated support system. Any writer worth his salt will acquire a long list of people to thank while completing a project like this, and what a pleasure it is to finally get to pay those dues. Graduate school is a remarkably rewarding challenge, and Vanderbilt University is a first-class place to undertake it. But it's also a pain in the neck, and I think I can safely say it was the good friends I acquired along the way who made my own wanderings through the past truly worth the effort. A few of them went above and beyond the call of duty. Tim Boyd is, among other things, an excellent side-kick; during my four years in Nashville we caravanned all over the Southeast together and went truly out of our way to find interesting food, including what are probably the best mutton sandwich and burgoo in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Steven Miller not only shared with me his immense knowledge of American religious history, but also provided a spare bed, good company, and an insider's knowledge of his city's epicurean delights on my several trips to St. Louis. Peter Kuryla is the best close-reader I know, and also the undisputed king of chicken-fried steak. Sarah Tyson laughed – hard – at the very first joke I ever told her and then gave me a place to live when I really needed one. At Vanderbilt's Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities my “fellow fellows” – Elena Deanda-Camacho, Gesa Frömming, Sarah Kersh, Gail McConnell, Elizabeth Meadows, Rachel Nisselson, and Matt Whitt – challenged me to expand and enrich my iv understanding of modernism. My first chapter, especially, owes a great debt to their collective intelligence. Gesa and Gail also gave me a good excuse to revisit the honky- tonks of Nashville's Lower Broadway. Finally, I would like to thank Caree Banton, Courtney Campbell, Rachel Donaldson, Pablo Gomez, David Gruber, Bill Hardin, Steve Harrison, Kurt Johnson, David LaFevor, Clay Poupart, Leeann Reynolds, and David Wheat by name for both their friendship and their camaraderie. They all made their mark in one way or another. I have been fortunate to work with a number of people whom I am grateful to call my mentors. Richard Blackett found a way to get me a fellowship when it seemed that one was not in my future. Bill Caferro is, like me, a Mets fan, which says as much about him as I need to know. David Carlton helped me understand the place I come from better than I ever could have on my own; he actually made me proud to be a son of that strange place, the American South. Katie Crawford took good care of me when she was DGS and also reminded me – just when I needed to hear it – how easy I actually had it. Jane Landers always felt like an ally. Arleen Tuchman laughed it off when my pride really did lead to a fall. At the SHA in New Orleans, Dan Usner not only took me on a private tour of the French Quarter, but he also taught me to call Chartres Street by its name and bought me a Gin Fizz. My friendship with Michael Bess has been an anchor and also a joy. An extra-special thanks to the members of my committee: Sarah Igo, Dennis Dickerson, and Jim Hudnut-Beumler. Their enthusiastic support of my project proved just the right kind of motivator. Gary Gerstle is an extraordinary adviser. He read many, many drafts of this v dissertation and provided suggestion after suggestion, each one usually better than the last. He also challenged me to “push and harness” the project even when I didn't really want to work on it anymore. Perhaps more than he realizes, he helped me to grow up. Over the summers of 2009 and 2010, I spent two valuable and pleasant weeks at the Futures of American Studies Institute at Dartmouth College. My thanks to Alan Nadell (and his quacking alarm clock) both for good laughs and for stepping in at the San Antonio ASA like a champ. Kim O'Neill made several nights at Murphy's on the Green more memorable than they otherwise might have been. Raj Chetty was both a good sport and the only drinking companion I've ever had who doesn't drink. Lynne Feeley seemed like an old friend even before I ever properly met her. At the Augustus Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site in Cornish, New Hampshire, Ranger Kate told me where to find both J. D. Salinger's house and the best beer in Vermont – and for that, I salute her. At the University of Tennessee, colleagues in the departments of American Studies, English, History, and Religious Studies all offered helpful feedback. I am especially indebted to the members of UT's Religion in North America seminar, particularly Mark Hulsether, Kelly Baker, and Randall Hepner. Bob Hutton and I were grad school buddies in Nashville, and became even closer friends in Knoxville. I'm not sure I'll know what to do with myself when lunch with him is no longer just a phone call and a short walk away. While I was in Knoxville, Ernie Freeberg became a good friend and a trusted mentor. He provided much-needed direction not only to my work, but also to my life. The archivists at the Billy Graham Center and Wheaton College Archive and vi Special Collections played a vital role in this project. I would not have been able to complete it without their incredible collection and even more incredible mastery of what's in it. My thanks, in particular, to Keith Call, Paul Ericksen, Bob Shuster, and Wayne Weber. On my research trips to Chicagoland, I spent many a wonderful evening with the Golz family, who furnished me with that rare thing, a home away from home. I owe Kurt Petersen a drink for setting me up with them. I also owe one to Sasha Belikov for his long and unlikely friendship. At the Presbyterian Historical Society in St. Louis, Wayne Sparkman dug out all sorts of interesting documents. Patrick Robbins at Bob Jones College's Fundamentalism File made my visit far easier than it might have been. Grace Mullen and Sandy Finlayson provided helpful assistance at Westminster College in Philadelphia. I want to thank my parents – all four of them – for allowing me to follow my own path, even on those occasions when they've thought it was the wrong one. No matter how far I've roamed, I've always known that I have a home in Tennessee. My in-laws accepted me as a son and a brother the first time I showed up in their Berlin apartment, a scrawny American kid hopelessly smitten with their daughter and sister. A big hug to my own siblings and their growing families; to my aunts and uncles and cousins; and to all of my friends not specifically named here – you are dearer to me than you're liable to know. Lydia and Max are closer to me than anyone. Lydia has lived with this project since its earliest beginnings, and will, I'm sure, be glad to see it go. Max's arrival in our lives has given me yet another good reason to finish it. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page DEDICATION ….............................................................................................................. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ….......................................................................................... iv INTRODUCTION: OF ANGELS AND ANGLES …....................................................... 1 Chapter I. REVOLUTION AND COUNTERREVOLUTION …......................................... 23 II. I'M GOING WHERE THERE'S NO DEPRESSION …...................................... 54 III. NOBODY KNOWS YOU WHEN YOU'RE DOWN AND OUT …................... 91 IV. EYESIGHT TO THE BLIND …........................................................................ 127 V. AIN'T WHAT YOU DO, IT'S THE WAY HOW YOU DO IT …...................... 169 CONCLUSION ….......................................................................................................... 200 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY...................................................................................... 214 viii INTRODUCTION Of Angels and Angles “Together with the problem of gaining political and economic power, the proletariat must also face the problem of winning intellectual power. Just as it has thought to organize itself politically and economically, it must also think about organizing itself culturally.” – Antonio Gramsci (1919)1 “A fundamentalist is an evangelical who is mad about something.” – Jerry Falwell (1988)2 ***** In the 1930s and 1940s there were millions of conservative, evangelical Protestants in America, and what we think we know about them can mostly be summed up in a few stubborn stereotypes – both popular and academic – that seem to live by their wits rather than by the strength of the evidence. It is widely known among the general populace, for example, that “fundamentalism” is an exclusively southern, and particularly Appalachian, phenomenon. According to this view, it represents a kind of hill-country voodoo, complete with serpents, ecstatic chants, and wild dancing. But while conservative evangelicals have certainly long been at home in Dixie, the World Christian Fundamentals Association – the first national organization to bring them together – was founded at a 1919 meeting held not in Atlanta or Dallas, but in Philadelphia.3 One of its 1 Unsigned letter in L'Ordine Nuovo (June 27, 1919) as quoted in David Forgacs (ed.), The Gramsci Reader: Selected Writings, 1916-1935 (New York: NYU Press, 2000), p.