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Abstract a Social Gospel Vision of Health ABSTRACT A SOCIAL GOSPEL VISION OF HEALTH: WASHINGTON GLADDEN’S SERMONS ON NATURE, SCIENCE AND SOCIAL HARMONY, 1869-1910 by Benjamin A. Susman This thesis is a case study in a Social Gospel approach to nature, human health and environmental politics. Human health and non-human nature were mutually constitutive in Washington Gladden’s vision of health. In sermons from 1869 to 1910, Gladden argued that human health was closely connected to the health of societies and cities, for the simple fact that humanity was a part of nature. The local, urban aspects of Gladden’s Social Gospel vision of health were an important connective tissue to understand his broader moral and economic arguments. Gladden’s distinct notions of social morality and social harmony are best understood at the intersection of religious histories of the Social Gospel, urban environmental histories and public health histories. Gladden emphasized social morality through scientific public health and the conservation movement. His vision of social health was an ideal of social harmony supported by professionals who understood that human beings were capable of ordering God’s creation so that humanity could live healthy lives in healthy places around the world. A SOCIAL GOSPEL VISION OF HEALTH: WASHINGTON GLADDEN'S SERMONS ON SCIENCE, NATURE AND SOCIAL HARMONY, 1869-1910 A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Miami University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts by Benjamin A. Susman Miami University Oxford, Ohio 2020 Advisor: Dr. Steven Conn Reader: Dr. Amanda Mcvety Reader: Dr. Marguerite Shaffer ©2020 Benjamin Anthony Susman This Thesis titled A SOCIAL GOSPEL VISION OF HEALTH: WASHINGTON GLADDEN’S SERMONS ON NATURE, SCIENCE AND SOCIAL HARMONY, 1869-1910 by Benjamin A. Susman has been approved for publication by The College of Arts and Sciences and Department of History ____________________________________________________ Dr. Steven Conn ______________________________________________________ Dr. Amanda McVety _______________________________________________________ Dr. Marguerite Shaffer Table of Contents Dedication………………………………………………………………………………...iv Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………..v Introduction: The Prospect of Healing Urban-Industrial Society………………………………………..1 Chapter One: Gladden’s Early Approach to Nature, Health and Social Morality……………………...17 Chapter Two: Professional Medicine and Gladden’s Vision of Social Harmony in the 1890s…………39 Chapter Three: Cities, Health and Social Harmony through the Conservation Movement………………57 Conclusion: Applied Christianity……………………………………………………………………...78 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………..83 iii Dedication To my parents. iv Acknowledgements In theory, an acknowledgement page is a necessary part of any published work. In practice, it is a difficult thing, even for a master’s student submitting a thesis. Beyond the names listed here were many more who helped this project become a reality. My advisor, Dr. Steven Conn, deserves to be listed first here; for coaching a scrawny, inconsistent utility infielder into a serviceable second baseman. That is to say, his guidance, patience and ability to turn many of my negative qualities into positives, are the main reasons this thorough project was completed. Many other thanks go to Dr. Amanda McVety, a reader/advisor on this project and the instructor in historical methods that opened my eyes to the various fields of history included in the thinking behind this project. Dr. Marguerite Shaffer, also a reader/advisor on this project, was probably the first professor I spoke to about my intention to venture into the field of environmental history. Each time we spoke, she helped me to see the forest for the trees, and that turned out to be a great help for a project such as this one. From here on out is where many names will go unmentioned for lack of space. In addition to the professors listed above, this project could never have been completed without the input and encouragement of the following advisers and instructors: Dr. Lindsay Schakenbach Regele, Dr. Nishani Frazier and Dr. Andrew Offenburger. And to Dr. Erik Jensen, Dr. Stephen Norris, Dr. Daniel Prior, Dr. Elena Albarrán, and Dr. P. Renée Baernstein, thank you for helping me build my confidence in forming historical arguments and for providing stellar examples of the professional historian at work. In my mind, my colleagues are always going to be separated into two groups: first years and second years. The latter guided the former from our first day and left us with invaluable wisdom about how to succeed in our positions. For me, Austin Hall, Evan Ash, Eric Rhodes, Alexandra Fair and Edward Strong, were especially helpful in offering the right word at the right time to keep me going. Of the first years who eventually became second years (and then graduated), I want to thank all nine of you for making this a very fun and perfectly normal two years. Zach Logsdon, Louis Grün and Zina Osipova deserve special mention for being perfectly fun and very normal. This thesis is dedicated to my parents, Brook Susman and Valerie Stanley. My sister, Kathryn Susman, also deserves mention here for being a shining example of honesty, perseverance and curiosity. v Introduction: The Prospect of Healing Urban-Industrial Society Washington Gladden took up a pastorate at Columbus’s First Congregational Church in 1882. He held this position in Ohio’s capital until passing away at the age of 82 in 1918. Reverend Gladden was known worldwide, through the books and essays he published from the 1860s until his death, as he became one of the most renowned ministers of the Social Gospel movement.1 He provided guidance to Protestant audiences navigating the social and cultural changes of urbanization and industrialization in the United States. His invitation to Columbus by the congregation of the First Church was a recognition of his national influence.2 After graduating from Williams College in 1859, Gladden worked for urban churches of various sizes through the 1860s and 1870s: in Brooklyn, in Morrisania, New York, in North Adams, and then Springfield, Massachusetts. Journeying from Springfield, Gladden’s new position in Columbus was a promotion. Now he would be the most prominent Congregationalist voice in an important capital city. Columbus grew in population through the late nineteenth century, and so did Gladden’s influence as a guiding voice to Americans in the social and political transformations of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. Once he settled into the parsonage of Columbus’s First Congregational Church, Gladden continued to push the boundaries of the traditional role of a minister in American society. 1 Susan Curtis, A Consuming Faith: The Social Gospel and Modern American Culture (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1991), 1-9; Heath W. Carter, Union Made: Working People and the Rise of Social Christianity in Chicago (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 3-7; Ronald C. White, Jr. and C. Howard Hopkins, The Social Gospel: Religion and Reform in Changing America, with an essay by John C. Bennett (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1976), xiii-xv; Jacob Henry Dorn, Washington Gladden: Prophet of the Social Gospel (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 1968), vii-viii. The growth of local and national economies, as well as social conflicts over issues of labor, economic power, and race, challenged the orthodox Protestant establishment and inspired the rise of the Social Gospel movement in many American denominations. Social Gospelers reflected on the changes taking place in their society, including status anxiety about the role of the middle class in the industrial economy and threats to the middle-class domestic ideal. The Social Gospel applied biblical teachings to political, economic, and social reform, and came to be the dominant form of Protestantism in the United States by 1910. 2 Dorn, Washington Gladden, 71-73; C. George Fry, “The Social Gospel at the Crossroads of Middle America: Washington Solomon Gladden and the First Congregational Church, Columbus, 1882-1918,” in Perspectives on the Social Gospel: Papers from the Inaugural Social Gospel Conference at Colgate Rochester Divinity School, ed. Christopher H. Evans (Lewiston, NY: Edward Mellen, 1999), 51-53; David Mislin, Washington Gladden’s Church: The Minister Who Made Modern American Protestantism (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2020), 97-98. In focusing more on Gladden’s early life and the first two decades of his ministerial career, Mislin provides a foundation in Gladden’s personality that is a great benefit to other biographies that emphasize Gladden’s later career, see Mislin, Washington Gladden’s Church, x-xi. 1 Gladden was one of many ministers that took American Protestantism in new directions after the Civil War.3 Into the 1860s, there remained a prevalent mindset of ignorance in most American denominations over the social consequences of the twin processes of industrialization and urbanization. Many congregations simply withheld assistance to the poor, in a theological standpoint that came to be known as clerical laissez-faire.4 The goal was to justify the lives of the wealthy and demonize the lives of the poor, and to erect a border between sacred space and the urban spaces of crime, corruption and immorality.5 Nowhere were threats to the American Protestant establishment more apparent than the industrializing city. Urban denizens, specifically those part of the working class, were automatically
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