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The People Called New Lights Blog

From maritime Canada to the Carolina backcountry, New England to the Illinois prairies, Protestants in British North America and the new United States influenced by the evangelical awakenings of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were known as the "people called New Lights." This occasional blog features news, reviews, and research notes, along with dispatches from the archives and edited transcriptions of notable, obscure, and downright quirky manuscripts chronicling the religious beliefs, practices, and experiences of the people called New Lights from 1730 to 1850.


Seized by the Jerks (East Tennessee, 1803)

January 28, 2019

My latest journal article just appeared in the new issue of the William and Mary Quarterly! “Seized by the Jerks: Shakers, Spirit Possession, and the Great Revival” tells the surprising story of the “jerking exercise,” one of the most controversial religious practices in the history of early American Protestantism. Research for this project led me to dozens of archives from Michigan to Mississippi. Altogether, I uncovered more than 200 reports of this notorious somatic phenomenon. Most of these documents will soon be available in a curated digital archive. (Stay tuned!) For a student-friendly version of the article, consider downloading the OI Reader edition, which includes an interactive map and a selection of fascinating primary texts. Many thanks to Joshua Piker for championing this project and to Meg Musselwhite, Kim Foley, Becky Wrenn, and the OI apprentices for providing matchless editorial and design support. Hopefully, “Seized by the Jerks” will help scholars reconsider the origins of southern evangelicalism during the Second Great Awakening.

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In Research Notes Tags William and Mary Quarterly, jerks, Douglas Winiarski, Joshua Piker, Meg Musselwhite, Kim Foley, Becky Wrenn, Maryville (Tenn.), Tennessee
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