Children of wrath

Leo Hirrel redefines the origins of the early nineteenth-century social reform movements by exploring the relationship between religion and reform efforts during a crucial period in American history. He illustrates the fundamental importance of religious ideas to the notion of reform and shows the New School at work reforming traditional Calvinism to fit an agenda of social change.

Hirrel focuses on New School Congregationalists and Presbyterians. Led by ministers such as Nathaniel William Taylor and Lyman Beecher, these congregations were at the forefront of reform efforts and provided critical leadership to anti-Catholic, temperance, antislavery, and missionary movements. Their religion was an attempt to reconcile traditional Calvinist language with the prevailing intellectual trends of the time.