Toward a Bibliography of Religion in the Midwest

Paul Putz

I’ve written previously about recent efforts to bring renewed scholarly attention to the Midwest. In the time since then, I’ve often wondered: what would a history of religious life in the Midwest look like? What already published books and articles would need to be considered and incorporated?

To my knowledge, the most complete attempt to probe what is distinct about religion in the Midwest is Religion & Public Life in the Midwest: America’s Common Denominator? (2004). As part of AltaMira’s Religion by Region Series, editors Philip Barlow and Mark Silk put together a series of fascinating essays covering a range of topics: the Midwest as the United States writ small, the Midwest’s enduring Methodist tinge, its high concentration of Lutherans, its distinct brand of Catholicism (more innovative and ethnically diverse), Chicago (need I say more?), the diversity of religious affiliations brought about by recent changes in immigration patterns, and the contrast between urban, suburban, and rural forms of religious expression. While the essays were insightful, they were also rather short and suggestive. If you believe that considering the Midwest as a region is a useful enterprise, there is plenty of work to be done.

To that end, I’d like your help developing a working bibliography. I am interested here in two things: first, what books or articles, if any, have been framed distinctively as a study of religion (or of a specific religion, religious group, or religious leader) in the Midwest. And second, among the many books or articles that are set in the Midwest but that do not purport to be studying the Midwest as a region, which would be helpful to any attempt to offer a synthesis of the history of religious life in the Midwest?

In getting this list started, I’ve relied on the same regional definition as Barlow and Silk in their edited volume. That is, I’ve recognized that the definition for what counts as “Midwest” is very much contested, and then I’ve gone ahead and included the states you see outlined on the book cover to the left.

My list has plenty of gaps (hardly any pre-1970 works, nothing featuring Canada, not enough attention to various American Indian nations, etc.), which is why I’d love your help. Please feel free to add to the list in the comments. I should also point out that although there are tons of great and useful articles in the various Midwestern state historical journals, for the most part with this list I’ve set those aside. But if you know of a particularly great article, please let me know.

With that said, here is my attempt to get a working bibliography started, with items listed in reverse chronological order.

• Christina Dickerson-Cousin, ”I Call You Cousins’: Kinship, Religion, and Black-Indian Relations in Nineteenth-Century Michigan,” Ethnohistory 61 (Winter 2014)

• Shari Rabin, “‘A Nest to the Wandering Bird’: Iowa and the Creation of American Judaism, 1855–1877,” Annals of Iowa 73 (Spring 2014)

• Joseph Weber, Transcendental Meditation in America: How a New Age Movement Remade a Small Town in Iowa (Iowa, 2014)

• Sally Howell, Old Islam in Detroit: Rediscovering the Muslim American Past (Oxford, 2014)

• William A. Mirola, Redeeming Time: Protestantism and Chicago’s Eight-Hour Movement, 1866-1912 (Illinois, 2014)

• Mary Beth Fraser Connolly, Women of Faith: The Chicago Sisters of Mercy and the Evolution of a Religious Community (Fordham, 2014)

• Linda Clemmons, Conflicted Mission: Faith, Disputes, and Deception on the Dakota Frontier (Minnesota Historical Society, 2014)

• Jane Juffer, Intimacy Across Borders: Race, Religion, and Migration in the U.S. Midwest (Temple, 2013)

• Timothy Gloege, “Faith Healing, Medical Regulation, and Public Religion in Progressive Era Chicago,” Religion & American Culture 23 (Summer 2013)

• Michael Pasquier, ed., Gods of the Mississippi (Indiana, 2013)

• Cheryl Janifer LaRoche, Free Black Communities and the Underground Railroad: The Geography of Resistance (Illinois, 2013)

• Barton E. Price, “The Central Christian Advocate and the Quest for a Heartland Identity in American Methodism, 1852-1900,” Methodist History 50 (July 2012)

• Matthew Pehl, “‘Apostles of Fascism,’ ‘Communist Clergy,’ and the UAW: Political Ideology and Working-Class Religion in Detroit, 1919-1945,” Journal of American History 99 (September 2012)

• Michael Stamm, “Broadcasting Mainline Protestantism: The Chicago Sunday Evening Club and the Evolution of Audience Expectations from Radio to Television,” Religion & American Culture 22 (Summer 2012)

• Deborah Kanter, “Making Mexican Parishes: Ethnic Succession in Chicago Churches, 1947-1977,” U.S. Catholic Historian 30 (Winter 2012)

• Robert Wuthnow, Red State Religion: Faith and Politics in America’s Heartland (Princeton, 2011)

• Jennifer Graber, “Mighty Upheaval on the Minnesota Frontier: Violence, War, and Death in Dakota and Missionary Christianity” Church History 80 (March 2011)

• James Burkee, Power, Politics, and the Missouri Synod: A Conflict that Changed American Christianity (Fortress, 2011)

• William Kostlevy, “Perfecting Mennonites: The Holiness Movement’s Impact on American Mennonites with Special Reference to Kansas,” Brethren in Christ History & Life 34 (August 2011)

• Adam Jortner, The Gods of Prophetstown: The Battle of Tippecanoe and the Holy War for the American Frontier (Oxford, 2011)

• William Kostlevy, Holy Jumpers: Evangelicals and Radicals in Progressive Era America (Oxford, 2010)

• Kevin D. Smith, “Breaking Faith: Religion, Americanism, and Civil Rights in Postwar Milwaukee,” Religion & American Culture 20 (Winter 2010)

• Jeanne Halgren Kilde, Nature and Revelation: A History of Macalester College (Minnesota, 2010)

• Heath Carter, “Scab Ministers, Striking Saints: Christianity and Class Conflict in 1894 Chicago,” Nineteenth Century History 11 (September 2010)

• Jon Lauck, Prairie Republic: The Political Culture of Dakota Territory, 1879-1889 (Oklahoma, 2010)

• Robert Sutton, Heartland Utopias (Northern Illinois, 2009)

• Alan F. Bearman and Jennifer L. Mills, “Charles M. Sheldon and Charles F. Parham,” Kansas History 32 (Summer 2009)

• Michael D. McNally, Honoring Elders: Aging, Authority, and Ojibwe Religion (Columbia, 2009)

• Eugene Heideman, The Practice of Piety: The Theology of the Midwestern Reformed Church in America, 1866-1966 (Eerdmans, 2009)

• Thekla Ellen Joiner, Sin in the City: Chicago and Revivalism, 1880-1920 (Missouri, 2007)

• Stephen Gross, “The Grasshopper Shrine at Cold Spring, Minnesota: Religion and Market Capitalism among German-American Catholics,” Catholic Historical Review 92 (April 2006)

• Royden Loewen, Diaspora in the Countryside: Two Mennonite Communities and Mid-Twentieth-Century Rural Disjuncture (Illinois, 2006)

• Edward E. Curtis IV, Black Muslim Religion in the Nation of Islam, 1960-1975 (North Carolina, 2006)

• Nick Salvatore, Singing in a Strange Land: C.L. Franklin, the Black Church, and the Transformation of America (Illinois, 2006)

• Suellen Hoy, Good Hearts: Catholic Sisters in Chicago’s Past (Illinois, 2006)

• Wallace D. Best, Passionately Human, No Less Divine: Religion and Culture in Black Chicago, 1915-1952 (Princeton, 2005)

• Richard Nation, At Home in the Hoosier Hills: Agriculture, Politics, and Religion in Southern Indiana, 1810-1870 (Indiana, 2005)

• Fadwa El Guindi, “Islam in Urban America: Sunni Muslims in Chicago,” Journal of American Ethnic History 24 (Summer 2005)

• Mary L. Mapes, A Public Charity: Religion and Social Welfare in Indianapolis, 1929-2002 (Indiana, 2004)

• Thomas Meyers and Steven Nolt, An Amish Patchwork: Indiana’s Old Orders in the Modern World (Indiana, 2004)

• Philip Barlow and Mark Silk, eds. Religion and Public Life in the Midwest: America’s Common Denominator? (AltaMira, 2004)

• John E. Miller, “Lawrence Welk and John Wooden: Midwestern Small-Town Boys Who Never Left Home,” Journal of American Studies 38 (April 2004)

• Johan Stellingwerff, Iowa Letters: Dutch Immigrants on the American Frontier (Eerdmans, 2004)

• Andrew Rieser, “Bobos in Search of Paradise: Chautauqua Boosters in the American Midwest and West, 1874-1900,” Journal of the West  42 (Fall 2003)

• Shawn Francis Peters, The Yoder Case: Religious Freedom, Education, and Parental Rights (Kansas, 2003)

• Susan Nance, “Mystery of the Moorish Science Temple: Southern Blacks and American Alternative Spirituality in 1920 Chicago,” Religion & American Culture 12 (Summer 2002)

• Robert Martin, Hero of the Heartland: Billy Sunday and the Transformation of American Society, 1862-1935 (Indiana, 2002)

• Jeffrey Marlett, Saving the Heartland: Catholic Missionaries in Rural America (Northern Illinois, 2002)

• Mary Lethert Wingerd, Claiming the City: Politics, Faith and the Power of Place in St. Paul (Cornell, 2001)

• Fran Grace, Carry A. Nation: Retelling the Life (Indiana, 2001)

• Michael D. McNally, “The Practice of Native American Christianity,” Church History 69 (December 2000)

• Aaron K. Ketchell, “Contesting Tradition and Combating Intolerance: A History of Freethought in Kansas,” Great Plains Quarterly 20 (September 2000)

• Rod Janzen, The Prairie People: Forgotten Anabpatists (New England, 1999)

• Terell Dale Goddard, “The Black Social Gospel in Chicago, 1896-1906: The Ministries of Reverdy C. Ransom and Richard R. Wright, Jr.” Journal of Negro History 84 (1999)

• Mario Gonzalez and Elizabeth Cook-Lynn, The Politics of Hallowed Ground: Wounded Knee and the Struggle for Indian Sovereignty (Illinois, 1999)

• J. Kent Calder and Susan S. Neville, eds., Falling Toward Grace: Images of Religion and Culture from the Heartland (Indiana, 1998)

• JoEllen McNergney Vinyard, For Faith and Fortune: The Education of Catholic Immigrants in Detroit, 1805-1925 (Illinois, 1998)

• J. Stanford Rikoon, “The Jewish Agriculturalists’ Aid Society of America: Philanthropy, Ethnicity, and Agriculture in the Heartland,” Agricultural History 72 (Winter 1998)

• Marnie Jones, Holy Toledo: Religion and Politics in the Life of ‘Golden Rule’ Jones (Kentucky, 1998)

• Dan Rottenberg, ed., Middletown Jews: The Tenuous Survival of an American Jewish Community (Indiana, 1997)

• Timothy D. Willig, “Prophetstown on the Wabash: The Native Spiritual Defense of the Old Northwest,” Michigan Historical Review 23 (March 1997)

• Frank E. Johns, “Inspired By Grace: Methodist Itinerants in the Early Midwest,” Methodist History 35 (January 1997)

• Roger Launius and John Hallwas, eds., Kingdom on the Mississippi Revisited: Nauvoo in Mormon History (Illinois, 1996)

• Linda Schloff, “And Prairie Dogs Weren’t Kosher”: Jewish Women in the Upper Midwest Since 1855 (Minnesota Historical Society, 1996)

• L.C. Rudolph, Hoosier Faiths: A History of Indiana’s Churches and Religious Groups (Indiana, 1996)

• Susan Gray, The Yankee West: Community Life on the Michigan Frontier (North Carolina, 1996)

• Carol K. Coburn, Life at Four Corners: Religion, Gender, and Education in a German-Lutheran Community, 1868-1945 (Kansas, 1994)

• James W. Lewis, The Protestant Experience in Gary, Indiana, 1906-1975: At Home in the City (Tennessee, 1992)

• Melissa A. Pflug, “Politics of Great Lakes Indian Religion,” Michigan Historical Review 18 (March 1992)

• Timothy L. Smith, “The Ohio Valley: Testing Ground for America’s Experiment in Religious Pluralism,” Church History 60 (December, 1991)

• L. DeAne Lagerquiest, In America the Men Milk the Cows: Factors of Gender, Ethnicity, and Religion in the Americanization of Norwegian-American Women (Carlson, 1991)

• Thomas E. Emerson and R. Barry Lewis, eds., Cahokia and the Hinterlands: Middle Mississippian Cultures of the Midwest (Illinois, 1991)

• William Vance Trollinger, God’s Empire: William Bell Riley and Midwestern Fundamentalism (Wisconsin, 1991)

• Bruce C. Nelson, “Revival and Upheaval: Religion, Irreligion, and Chicago’s Working Class in 1886,” Journal of Social History 25 (Winter 1991)

• Raymond J. DeMallie and Douglas R. Parks, eds., Sioux Indian Religion: Tradition and Innovation (Oklahoma, 1987)

• Joan R. Gundersen, “The Local Parish as a Female Institution: The Experience of All Saints Episcopal Church in Frontier Minnesota,” Church History 55 (September 1986)

• Ruth Bordin, Frances Willard: A Biography (North Carolina, 1986)

• Daniel O’Neill, “The Development of an American Priesthood: Archbishop John Ireland and the Saint Paul Diocesan Clergy, 1884-1918,” Journal of American Ethnic History 4 (Winter 1985)

• Grant Wacker, “Marching to Zion: Religion in a Modern Utopian Community,” Church History 54 (December 1985)

• Raymond J. DaMallie, ed., The Sixth Grandfather: Black Elk’s Teachings Given to John G. Neihardt (Nebraska, 1984)

• Mark Wyman, Immigrants in the Valley: Irish, Germans, and Americans in the Upper Mississippi Country, 1830-1860 (Rowman & Littlefield, 1984)

• R. David Edmunds, The Shawnee Prophet (Nebraska, 1983)

• Robert Ostergren, “The Immigrant Church as a Symbol of Community and Place in the Upper Midwest,” Great Plains Quarterly 2 (1981)

• Paul B. Steinmetz, Pipe, Bible, and Peyote among the Oglala Lakota (Syracuse, 1980)

• Timothy Walch, “Catholic Social Institutions and Urban Developments: The View from Nineteenth-Century Chicago and Milwaukee” Catholic Historical Review 64 (January 1978)

• Charles Tyrrell, “Primitive Methodism: The Midwestern Story,” Methodist History 15 (October 1976)

• Alan Graebner, Uncertain Saints: The Laity in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod 1900-1970 (Greenwood, 1975)

• Elmer Schwieder and Dorothy Schwieder, A Peculiar People: Iowa’s Old Order Amish (Iowa State, 1975)

• Selwyn Dewdney, The Sacred Scrolls of the Southern Ojibway (Toronto, 1975)

• Charles Edwin Jones, “Disinherited or Rural? A Historical Case Study in Urban Holiness Religion,” Missouri Historical Review 66 (April 1972)

• Jon Butler, “Communities and Congregations: The Black Church in St. Paul, 1860-1900,” Journal of Negro History 56 (1971)

• Richard Jensen, The Winning of the Midwest: Social and Political Conflict, 1888-1896 (Chicago, 1970)

• Paul Kleppner, The Cross of Culture: A Social Analysis of Midwestern Politics, 1850-1900 (Free Press, 1970)

• Peter Argereinger, “Pentecostal Politics in Kansas: Religion, the Farmer’s Alliance, and the Gospel of Populism,” Kansas Quarterly 1 (1969)

• Timothy L. Smith, “Religious Denominations as Ethnic Communities: A Regional Case Study,” Church History 35 (June 1966)

• Frank W. Stephenson, “The Development of the Methodist Protestant Church in the Midwest,” Methodist History 3 (January 1965)

• Robert Flanders, Nauvoo: Kingdom on the Mississippi (Illinois, 1965)

• Donald Kinzer, An Episode in Anti-Catholicism: The American Protective Association (Washington, 1964)

• James Findlay, “Preparation for Flight: D.L. Moody in Illinois and the Midwest, 1865-1873,” Journal of Presbyterian History 41 (May 1963)

Along with all those, there are numerous books set to be released this year that feature Midwestern geographical settings: 

• Matthew Pehl, The Making of Working Class Religion: Class, Culture, and Christianity in Detroit, 1910-1970 (Illinois, forthcoming)

• David Krueger, Runestone Myths: Viking Martyrs and the Birthplace of America (Minnesota, forthcoming)

• Heath Carter, Union Made: Working People and the Rise of Social Christianity in Chicago (Oxford, forthcoming)

• Julia Marie Robinson, Race, Religion, and the Pulpit: Rev. Robert L. Bradby and the Making of Urban Detroit (Wayne State, April)

• Eve A. Hargrave, Shirley J. Schermer, Kristin M. Hedman, and Robin M. Lillie, eds. Transforming the Dead: Culturally Modified Bone in the Prehistoric Midwest (Alabama, April)

• Lila Corwin Berman, Metropolitan Jews: Politics, Race, and Religion in Postwar Detroit (Chicago, April)

• Robert Marovich, A City Called Heaven: Chicago and the Birth of Gospel Music (Illinois, April)

• Timothy Gloege, Guaranteed Pure: The Moody Bible Institute, Business, and the Making of Modern Evangelicalism (North Carolina, April)

• Mark T. Mulder, Shades of White Flight: Evangelical Congregations and Urban Departure (Rutgers, March)

• Paul D. Numrich and Elfriede Wedam, Religion and Community in the New Urban America (Oxford, March)

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