MOTHER KNOWS BEST: METHODISM, SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTISM, AND DIETARY MORALITY IN VICTORIAN AMERICA by Emily Jean Bailey Bachelor of Arts, Smith College, 2006 Master of Arts, University of Pittsburgh, 2010 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2015 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH KENNETH P. DIETRICH SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Emily Jean Bailey It was defended on May 28, 2015 and approved by Dr. Adam Shear, Associate Professor, Department of Religious Studies Dr. Rachel Kranson, Assistant Professor, Department of Religious Studies Dr. Jean Ferguson Carr, Associate Professor, Department of English Dissertation Advisor: Dr. Paula Kane, Professor and John and Lucine O’Brien Marous Chair of Contemporary Catholic Studies, Department of Religious Studies ii MOTHER KNOWS BEST: METHODISM, SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTISM, AND DIETARY MORALITY IN VICTORIAN AMERICA Emily Jean Bailey, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2015 Copyright © by Emily Jean Bailey 2015 iii MOTHER KNOWS BEST: METHODISM, SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTISM, AND DIETARY MORALITY IN VICTORIAN AMERICA Emily Jean Bailey, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2015 This dissertation is a denominational historical study of nineteenth- and early twentieth- century Methodist and Seventh-day Adventist dietary reforms and contributions to American food culture. It first considers the eighteenth-century health reforms of John Wesley as anticipations of nineteenth-century developments. It then asserts, through the lens of a “long” Victorian period, that Methodist and Adventist women, as wives, mothers, and nurturers, were the most influential among all denominations in shaping food culture through actual and perceived moral, religious, and domestic authority. It also brings to light the ways in which Methodist women contributed to the formation of American middle-class morality through their unique Protestant domesticity and striving for moral perfectionism, while Adventist dietary reformers culturally and spiritually set themselves apart from the Protestant mainline through their dietary reforms in preparation for what they believed was an imminent Second Coming of Christ. The overall purpose of this project is to offer a more nuanced study of culture and meaning when looking at food as a “signifier” of things like gender, race, ethnic identity, the exchange of religious and cultural ideas, and the transmission of those ideas between generations. From the perspective of Victorian American Methodism and Seventh-day Adventism, it shows the ways in which women from both denominations used food for good health, in the construction of religious identity, to mediate shifting American gendered labor patterns, and to alleviate and navigate moral tensions between abundance and frugality with the rise of increasingly industrialized American food production, and in a competitive Victorian American religious marketplace. iv As a study of material Christianity, this dissertation reveals how middle-class American Protestant women participated in the formation and maintenance of normative gendered labor and women’s power. It explores how food was used by sectarian and mainline traditions to create a sacred order and pervasive sense of Christian morality that influenced American life well into the Progressive Era in the opening decades of the twentieth century. v TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE ................................................................................................................................... XV 1.0 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 1 1.1 WESLEY, DIET, AND WELLNESS ................................................................. 9 1.1.1 Wesley and Health Reform ........................................................................... 13 1.1.2 Influences on Wesleyan Approaches to Diet ............................................... 16 1.1.3 Methodism, Adventism, and Material Christianity ................................... 21 1.2 MORAL PHYSIOLOGY .................................................................................. 24 1.2.1 Moral Perfectionism ...................................................................................... 24 1.2.2 Health Reforms and Modern Medicine ....................................................... 26 1.2.3 Water Cures and Vegetarianism .................................................................. 28 1.2.3.1 Water Cures......................................................................................... 29 1.2.3.2 Vegetarianism ...................................................................................... 31 1.3 VICTORIAN AMERICAN METHODISM .................................................... 36 1.3.1 19th c. American Evangelicalism ................................................................. 37 1.3.2 Revivals and “Popular” Religious Practice ................................................. 40 1.3.3 Gender and Camp Meetings ......................................................................... 42 1.4 CONCLUSIONS ................................................................................................ 45 2.0 DIET AND DOMESTICITY .................................................................................... 48 2.1 EATING LIKE A CHRISTIAN SHOULD ..................................................... 50 2.1.1 Making Moral Food Choices ........................................................................ 51 2.1.2 19th c. Food Innovations ................................................................................ 58 vi 2.2 CLASS, RACE, AND THE CHRISTIAN HOME .......................................... 59 2.2.1 The 19th c. Protestant Home ........................................................................ 60 2.2.2 Domestic Service, Race, and the Middle Class ........................................... 65 2.3 GENDER AND POWER .................................................................................. 75 2.3.1 Defining “Gender” ......................................................................................... 76 2.3.2 Protestant Victorian Gender Norms ............................................................ 77 2.3.2.1 Victorian Womanhood ....................................................................... 81 2.3.2.2 Methodist Women ............................................................................... 83 2.3.2.3 Protestant Masculinity ........................................................................ 90 2.3.3 Gender and Power ......................................................................................... 93 2.4 CONCLUSIONS ................................................................................................ 99 3.0 ELLEN WHITE: MATRIARCH AND VISIONARY .......................................... 101 3.1 ORIGINS OF SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTISM AND DIET REFORMS .. 104 3.1.1 White’s Early Years .................................................................................... 107 3.1.2 A New Religion............................................................................................. 111 3.1.3 Diet in the “Burned-Over” District ............................................................ 113 3.2 WHITE’S MORAL FOOD PROPHECIES .................................................. 115 3.2.1 Diet in Adventism ........................................................................................ 117 3.2.2 Adventist Vegetarianism ............................................................................. 121 3.2.3 Temperance .................................................................................................. 124 3.3 ADVENTIST MOTHERHOOD..................................................................... 126 3.3.1 Adventism and Domesticity ........................................................................ 127 3.3.2 White as a Maternal Figure ........................................................................ 132 vii 3.4 THE BATTLE CREEK SANITARIUM ....................................................... 133 3.4.1 White and Kellogg: Gender and Power at Battle Creek .......................... 136 3.4.2 Diet at the “San” .......................................................................................... 143 3.4.3 Ties between Diet and Dress Reform ......................................................... 149 3.5 CONCLUSIONS .............................................................................................. 154 4.0 FOOD AND “READING” METHODISM ............................................................ 157 4.1 RELIGIOUS PRINT IN AMERICA ............................................................. 159 4.1.1 Women as Readers and Writers ................................................................. 160 4.1.2 Domestic Texts as “Autobiographies” ....................................................... 164 4.2 THE LADIES’ REPOSITORY ........................................................................ 168 4.2.1 Ideal Motherhood ........................................................................................ 170 4.2.2 Food and Pious Domesticity........................................................................ 173 4.3 SHE’S NO GOOD IF SHE CAN’T MAKE PIE ........................................... 178 4.3.1 Paratexts and Cookbooks as Rhetoric ......................................................
Details
-
File Typepdf
-
Upload Time-
-
Content LanguagesEnglish
-
Upload UserAnonymous/Not logged-in
-
File Pages255 Page
-
File Size-