The Public Universal Friend: Jemima Wilkinson and Religious Enthusiasm in Revolutionary America

Paul B. Moyer

Published by Cornell University Press 2015

The Public Universal Friend

Jemima Wilkinson and Religious Enthusiasm in Revolutionary America

Paul B. Moyer

https://doi.org/10.7591/9781501701450

Overview
Contents

About this book

In The Public Universal Friend, Paul B. Moyer tells the story of Jemima Wilkinson and her remarkable church, the Society of Universal Friends. The life of the Public Universal Friend and the Friend's church offer important insights about changes to religious life, gender, and society in Revolutionary America.

Author / Editor information

Paul B. Moyer is Associate Professor of History at The College at Brockport (SUNY). He is the author of Wild Yankees: The Struggle for Independence along Pennsylvania’s Revolutionary Frontier, also from Cornell.

Reviews

Pink Dandelion, Centre for Research in Quaker Studies (University of Birmingham and University of Lancaster), Woodbrooke, England:

This is very thorough book. It has drama in terms of stories of sexual intrigue, attempted murder and legal battles over land, and as much detail on Wilkinson and her ideas as the evidence probably supports... [F]or anyone interested in Quakerism and revival offshoots or in this period of American religious history, the book is essential.

Susan Juster, University of Michigan, author of Disorderly Women:

Paul B. Moyer's microhistory of the revolutionary-era prophet Jemima Wilkinson narrates the fate of Wilkinson’s Society of Universal Friends in the western frontier of New York following her relocation there in the 1790s. This tangled story of property, law, and communitarianism has never been told so thoroughly or so incisively before. Moyer's detailed demographic, psychological, and cultural reconstruction of the prophet’s followers constitutes a major contribution to our knowledge of how millenarian movements are born and evolve over time.

Alan Taylor, author of The Internal Enemy:

Paul B. Moyer deftly tells the compelling story of Jemima Wilkinson, a Rhode Island girl who grew up to become the Public Universal Friend. As a divine messenger, Wilkinson defied the constraints of gender and emerged as an international celebrity in the age of revolutions. With careful research and clear analysis, Moyer recovers an extraordinary, although long neglected, cultural figure of the early American republic.

Erik R. Seeman, University at Buffalo, author of Death in the New World: Cross-Cultural Encounters, 1492–1800:

In The Public Universal Friend, Paul B. Moyer considers Jemima Wilkinson as the entry point to important historical and historiographical issues even while he contributes to our understanding of religion and gender in the era of the American Revolution. Moyer uses to good effect the fortuitous conjunction of American independence and Wilkinson's rebirth in 1776. This is an impressive book.

Mitch Horowitz, author of Occult America and One Simple Idea:

Finally we have a full-scale scholarly study of one of the most unusual and quietly seismic religious figures in American history: prophetess Jemima Wilkinson, the Public Universal Friend. Paul B. Moyer dramatically captures the revolutionary atmosphere of Wilkinson's New England in 1776, a place percolating with radical ideas, among them: that a woman could serve as a religious leader. In tracking Wilkinson’s career, Moyer rescues from the margins of history an esoteric figure as influential, in her own way, as Thomas Paine.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
List of Maps and Figures Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	ix
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	xi
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. Genesis Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	11
2. Numbers Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	31
3. Revelation Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	54
4. Chronicles Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	79
5. Exodus Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	114
6. Acts Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	140
7. Judges Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	166
Epilogue Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	189
A Note on Sources Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	201
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	205
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	247
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	259

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Audience: General/trade;
Pages
- Main content: 280
Illustrations
- Illustrations: 11
- Images: 11
- Other: 11 halftones, 3 maps
Keywords: political innovation; social transformation; Jemima Wilkinson; religious enthusiasm; Revolutionary America; American Revolution; religious upheaval; millenarian movements; Penn Yan; New York; American religious history

eBook

Published: November 18, 2015
ISBN: 9781501701450