Dickson D. Bruce, University of California, Irvine
7/29/96 pm
Shannon opens with question of who would like to visit three historic black churches in Philadelphia. Group of about 10 people will be joining the group.
Bruce: collection of hymns from 19th c. (ca. 1855 hymnal from John McCurry), which were sung and taught others to do so in "shape note" singing in traveling ministry, and in camp meetings. The "shape note" was designed to help those who did not read music know what tone to sing, based upon the shape of the note. The goal was to democratize singing so that all could participate. Some argument that in fact McCurry and others actually were writing down what they heard, rather than composing
These were sung as a hymn with a chorus, to be repeated at the end of each stanza.
Gallien: themes of weight of guilt/sin, lightness comes with salvation are recurring themes, and problem of pain in this world.
Brady: what about women exhorters in 19th c.
Bruce: led love feasts and testimonies, but were not in authority there
Lapsansky: there is the general question of how authority is established: "appropriate" routes to ministerial leadership. I think this is a way that students can get ahold of the question: how one climbs the leadership ladder
Bruce: this is an important set of issues in 19thc. focused around formal education (which is available only to the upper classes) vs. the "lower-class" incursion into leadership roles. Whitmarsh Seabrook, an 1830s southerner who favored missions to the slaves, but did not want to have black preachers because it gave Afams access to authority. And many others were opposed to extending authority this far. Camp meetings gave a wider possibility of participation--democratization. And shaping of "religious community", book Religious Outsiders in American Society is a good work on the subject of those who deliberately marginalize themselves in order to make a religious statement.
Important issue in camp-meetings is the way in which communities were created/defined by camp-meeting activity--hymns are one example. Conversion was the stated goal of camp-meetings, and hymns are designed to incorporate newcomers into the salvational community, which would end you up in heaven. Victor Turner's anthropological stages of conversion are of use here. If there is an individual level of this metamorphosis, and a ritual that supports it, then hymn texts reinforce this metamorphosis, for singing is a peculiar form of expression--constrained by text, rhythm, and relatively limited stock of phrases, themes, ideas in folk songs. What is valued is what people can catch onto and roll with quickly and passed along.
Point, then is that By the time these spiritual choruses are codified, they have been boiled down to what "everybody" in the group can be comfortable with. Definitions of God, Jesus, and each other can be seen inside these musical statements. Dominant themes: world-rejection--a sense that this world is to be rejected, and the next world anticipated. Rejection of "happiness" as being possible in this world. Focus on salvation, and on the building of a Christian "community" Conversion gives you a basis for rejecting the world, and a hope for a fulfilled place in heaven, and the camp-meeting was supposed to give you a taste of what it might be in the re-born life.
Why is this important? Stresses and strains of society doesn't explain much: there are always stresses and strains. See the new book by Alan Taylor, William Cooper's Town, which is the story of James Fenimore's Cooper's founding of Cooperstown (GREAT READ!) and the tension betwn Cooper's vision and the scattered visions of people who try to work with him. Tension btwn individualism and community, maybe supported by frontier anxieties in sparsely-populated areas. Success/failure was seated in individual hands, but, in fact, people really had to count on other people for survival. And the camp-meeting was a way to bring those two tensions together. Like Orsi, Bruce defines religion as bedrock of people's most deeply held ethics, concerns convictions. These are reflected in these hymns: a statement of what, for camp-meeting participants was the central "belief-system" of this folk religion.
Gallien: holiness scholars say that the only way to get at the holiness experience.
Helmer: how do you get it though, without actually hearing it!
Bruce: only obliquely, since we can't know what was the 19thc performance of these sounded like, but shape-note tradition helps keep it "pure"
Helmer: even questions of WHEN, in the context of a service each song was sung.
Bruce: yes, trying to put together the sequence is tricky
Lapsansky: context is one piece of this, changing as the community norms change: in northern Methodist church of last generation, no one could applaud, but that's no longer true
Gallien: limitations on performance and professionalization constrain what may be done in professional church settings.
Shannon: issues of migration from one tradition to another bringing in other accepted behavior
Harvey: can we make the argument that the 20th c is more open to migration betwn sacred/secular music.
Gallien: in 19thc we see Moody/Sankey tunes being used in roller rink world, where each is claiming ownership of the tune.
Montgomery: a number of secular singers got their training in the church--especially in the Black church.
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This page updated 1/29/97.