The Great Awakening

The major fracture in the church occurred at the time of the Great Awakening, between about 1734 and 1744. It has been the subject of a vast literature. Two standard works on the subject are Edwin S. Gaustad, The Great Awakening in New England (New York: Harper, 1957); and C. C. Goen, Revivalism and Separatism in New England, 1740-1800 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1962).

Bumsted, John M. “Revivalism and Separatism in New England: The First Society of Norwich, Connecticut.” William and Mary Quarterly. 3rd series 24(0ctober, 1967)4:588-612. Bumsted calls attention to the institutional problems, such as those growing out of the Saybrook Platform and society organization, that complicated the theological disputes. He points to conflicts over ministerial pay, geographic locations and lines of parishes, etc. as important disruptive factors.

Bushman, Richard L. "The Great Awakening in Connecticut," in Colonial America: Essays in Political and Social Development, Stanley N. Katz, ed. Boston, Little, Brown, 1976.

Cohen, Sheldon. “The Guilford Controversy.” CHS Bulletin 31 (April, 1966)2:50-54. The controversy, within the context of the struggle over the Saybrook Plat­form, was over the ordination of Thomas Ruggles, Jr., as minister, 1728-1733.

—”The Norwich Remonstrance.” CHS Bulletin 29(April, 1964)2:43-47. Another dispute over the Saybrook Platform, also focused on the minister, John Wood­ward, 1699-1717. These two works draw on Cohen’s doctoral dissertation noted above.

Havner, Carter Stone. ‘The Reaction of Yale to the Great Awakening. 1740-1766.” Doctoral dissertation, University of Texas, 1977. President Clap at­tempted to maintain orthodoxy at Yale and instituted many administrative and other changes, including establishing a professorship of divinity, to do so. By 1760 Clap lost the support of most students, several trustees, and an important segment of the public, and was forced to resign. See also under Clap in the “Biographies” section.

Knapp, Hugh H. “The Early Career of Samuel Hopkins and the End of the Awak­ening Style.” CHS Bulletin 39(April, 1974)2:54-64. Drawing largely on Hopkins’ diary at the Williams College Library, Knapp shows that “Hopkins’ early career involved extreme vocational frustration as well as suffering and agony over the basic worth of his preaching” and a romantic disappointment, (p. 55) These personal traumas helped shape the psychology and ideology of one of the most influential preachers of the late-eighteenth century.

Labaree, Leonard W. “George Whitefield Comes to Middletown.” William and Mary Quarterly. 3rd series 7(0ctober, 1950)4:588-91. A page-and-a-half ac­count by twenty-nine-year-old Nathan Cole of Kensington Parish, who witnes­sed Whitefield’s preaching in 1740, with an introduction by Labaree.

Mitchell, Mary Hewitt. The Great Awakening and Other Revivals in the Religious Life of Connecticut. Tercentenary pamphlet XXVI (1934). This competent treat­ment of about sixty pages includes a bibliography of works published before 1934. It is based on Mitchell’s 1901 Yale dissertation. It is useful if the more recent works cited above are not available.

Sklar, Robert “The Great Awakening and Colonial Politics.” CHS Bulletin 28(July, 1963)3:81-99. An early article emphasizing the secular and institutional fac­tors influencing the Awakening.

Vos, Howard Frederick. “The Great Awakening in Connecticut.” Doctoral disser­tation, Northwestern University, 1967. The Awakening brought a revival ex­perience to 10 percent of the adult population, Vos estimates. It also brought heightened piety, social concern, and fractured denominationalism. In addi­tion, it established two strains of Congregationalism—the evangelical and the rational—both of which, however, led to theological liberalisms “not markedly different” from each other.

White, Eugene E. “Decline of the Great Awakening in New England, 1741-1746.” New England Quarterly 24(March, 1951) 1:35-52. The excesses of the emotional evangelicals played an important part in turning people back to old forms and institutions. Significant attention to Connecticut.

Willingham, William. “The Conversion Experience During the Great Awaken­ing in Windham, Connecticut” Connecticut History 21 (January, 1980). Drawn from materials associated with Willingham’s doctoral dissertation, cited under “Town Histories,” above. Willingham provides a detailed description of the impact of the Awakening on one community.