Ohio History Journal
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JOHN M. MULDER
The Heavenly City and Human Cities:
Washington Gladden and Urban Reform
Historians have generally viewed the
rise of the social gospel dur-
ing the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries as a response to
the problems posed by industrialization,
immigration, and urbaniza-
tion. Ever since the publication of
Arthur M. Schlesinger's pioneering
analysis in 1932,1 historians have
examined American religious
groups, especially American Protestants,
to determine the ways in
which they met the Darwinist challenge
to their system of thought and
the social challenge of a new America.
The subsequent work by C.
Howard Hopkins, Aaron Abell, and Henry
F. May implicitly or ex-
plicitly accepted the framework of
challenge-response posed by
Schlesinger.2 The resulting
interpretation was one which stressed the
importance of social determinants in
this phase of American religious
history.
Another complementary interpretation of
the rise of the social gos-
pel has emerged from American church
historians, most notably H.
Richard Niebuhr, Robert T. Handy, and
Martin E. Marty. They have
emphasized the internal dynamics within
American Protestantism
which remained intact throughout most of
the eighteenth and nine-
teenth centuries but which came to
different expressions under varied
social conditions. Niebuhr noted how
American Protestants in the late
nineteenth century increasingly
identified the Kingdom of God with a
John Mulder is Assistant Professor of
American Church History at Princeton
Theological Seminary, Princeton, New
Jersey.
1. Arthur M. Schlesinger, "A
Critical Period in American Religion," Massachu-
setts Historical
Society Proceedings, LXIV (October
1930-June 1932), 523-46. Schles-
inger's basic approach was supplemented
by the chapter on the church and the city in
his The Rise of the City, 1878-1898 (New
York, 1933).
2. C. Howard Hopkins, The Rise of the
Social Gospel in American Protestantism,
1865-1915 (New Haven, 1940); Aaron Abell, The Urban Impact on
American Prot-
estantism, 1865-1900 (Cambridge, 1943); Henry F. May, The Protestant
Churches
and Industrial America (New York, 1949). May has apparently had some second
thoughts about the validity of the
methodology which he used in writing his book,
originally a doctoral dissertation under
Schlesinger; see his forward to the Harper
Torchbook edition (New York, 1967).
152 OHIO
HISTORY
social order capable of being realized
upon earth.3 Handy argued that
the century from 1830 to 1930 represents
a more or less continuous
attempt by American Protestantism to
"Christianize" America, first
through revivalism and then through the social gospel.4 Similarly,
Marty has stressed the
"imperialism" which characterized the Pro-
testant desire to subdue and conquer
obstacles presented by American
culture and remake society in its own
image.5
Both schools of interpretation have
failed to be precise in their
descriptions of the various and changing
ways in which the social gos-
pel perceived and reacted to the city.
This imprecision has been en-
couraged by the tendency of many
historians to see late nineteenth-
century Americans, especially
Protestants, as clinging tenaciously to
a rural ethos in an urban age. Constance
Green has talked of a "nostalgia
for the rural past," stating that
"farmers and villagers strove to check
urban influences, and city dwellers
themselves often sought to preserve
the values of nineteenth century
agrarian America."6 Similarly, Anselm
Strauss pointed out the "paeans to
a bucolic ruralism" which during
the latter part of the nineteenth
century "reached peaks of lyricism
and blatancy."7 City was
set against farm, rural innocence against ur-
ban corruption, and American
Protestantism's strong ties to an agrar-
ian, purified ethic presumably fed the
fires of the zealous progressive
reformers attempting to subdue the
noxious influences of urban life.
Indeed, Richard Hofstadter has argued
that the progressive mind
was "pre-eminently a Protestant
mind," which "inherited the moral
traditions of rural evangelical
Protestantism. The Progressives were
still freshly horrified by phenomena
that we now resignedly consider
indigenous to urban existence. However
prosperous they were, they
lived in the midst of all the iniquities
that the agrarian myth had taught
them to expect of urban life, and they
refused to accept them calmly."8
3. H. Richard Niebuhr, The Kingdom of
God in America (1937; reprint ed., 1959);
cf. Idem., The Social Sources of
Denominationalism (1927; reprint
ed., 1957).
4. Handy's most concise statement of
this thesis is "The Protestant Quest for a
Christian America, 1830-1930," Church
History, XXII (1952), 8-20. See also his book,
A Christian America: Protestant Hopes
and Historical Realities (New York,
1971), and
"The City and the Church:
Historical Interlockings," Will the Church Lose the City?
eds. Kendig Brubaker Cully and F. Nile
Harper (New York, 1969), 89-103.
5. Martin E. Marty, Righteous Empire:
The Protestant Experience in America (New
York, 1970). Robert H. Wiebe's The
Search for Order, 1877-1920 (New York, 1967), is
a broadly gauged analysis which stresses
some of the internal components in the re-
form effort and thus tends to support
some of the emphases of Niebuhr, Handy, and
Marty.
6. Constance Green, The Rise of Urban
America (New York, 1965), 128.
7. Anselm L. Strauss, Images of the
American City (New York, 1961), 178.
8. Richard Hofstadter, Age of Reform:
From Bryan to F.D.R. (New York, 1955),
204-05.
Washington Gladden 153
While the importance of the rural
origins of many social gospel and
progressive reformers and the shock of
the sudden urbanization of
American life cannot be underestimated,
a simple rural-urban di-
chotomy does not explain adequately the
social gospel's perception of
the city and the nature of urban reform
during this period.9
As a result, the relationship between
the social gospel and urbani-
zation has been obscured, and the social
gospel's influence in urban
reform has perhaps been underestimated.
This religious reform move-
ment was not a defensive reaction by
evangelical, agrarian Protes-
tants who responded to the rapid
urbanization of late nineteenth-cen-
tury America by attempting to establish
an agrarian ideal in the midst
of an urban culture. Nor was the social
gospel just another in a series
of attempts to Christianize America on
the same basis as the evangel-
ical revivalism of the frontier. The
social gospel, both in theology and
program, was essentially a bridge
between the simpler agrarianism of
the nineteenth century and the more
complex, pluralistic urbanism of
the twentieth. In its theology, it
attempted to transform the symbols
and values of rural America and related
them to an urban environ-
ment. In its social program, it tried to
ameliorate those forces which
were victimizing many. As a bridge, the
social gospel had its inevi-
table ambiguities in helping America
adjust to an industrialized, urban-
ized America embracing the city on the
one hand and yet holding it at
arm's length, demanding its purification
and reform.
These ambiguities, this combination of
urbanism and agrarianism,
are graphically illustrated in the
preaching and reform efforts of Wash-
ington Gladden, one of the earliest and
perhaps most important of
the social gospel leaders. Often called
"the father of the social gos-
pel,"1O Gladden's
activity spanned six decades and ranged from the
anti-slavery movement of the 1850s to
the New Freedom of Woodrow
Wilson. His two chief concerns were to
liberalize theology and apply
it to the task of social reform. As he
once commented to a friend,
"Well, what else IS there?"11
The core of this theology was the idea
of the Kingdom of God, by which human
behavior and institutions
might be measured. He proclaimed the new
theology and its implica-
tions for the social order from pulpits
and lecterns primarily in the ur-
banizing East and Middle West, and his
prolific pen produced more
9. For a description of the varied
responses to American urbanization, see Robert
D. Cross' provocative essay in The
Church and the City, ed. Robert D. Cross (Indian-
apolis, 1967), xi-xlii.
10. Hopkins, Rise of the Social
Gospel, 26; Robert T. Handy, ed., The Social Gospel
in America, 1870-1920 (New York, 1966), 32.
11. Jacob H. Dorn, Washington
Gladden: Prophet of the Social Gospel (Colum-
bus, 1966), vii.
154 OHIO
HISTORY
than sixty books and pamphlets as well
as scores of magazine ar-
ticles. His writings reflected a man of
prodigious energy and wide in-
terests, his books ranging from
political commentary to theology to
poetry and short stories.
In nearly every case, Gladden's constant
theme was the necessity
for social reform, that Christianity is
not a matter of pious belief but
aggressive, moral exertion. Since many
of the themes of Gladden's
theology were developed more fully and
at greater depth by others,
there was little in it that was profound
or creative, except as a con-
temporary said, "his determination
that it should be applied, utilized,
and set to work to save not only
individuals but society." In an age of
reform, he was called "an ideal
American," and an early evaluation
of his career concluded, "it would
be difficult to name one who did
more to disseminate progressive
religious and social ideas."12
Gladden's background was unmistakably
rural. He was born in the
small town of Pottsgrove, Pennsylvania,
on February 11, 1836, and
after his schoolteacher father's death
when Gladden was six, he
moved to Owego, New York, to live with
his uncle.13 But like many of
his social gospel contemporaries,
Gladden experienced the problems
of an urbanizing America early in his
ministry, and the importance of
this experience can scarcely be
underestimated. In 1860 he accepted
the pulpit of the First Congregational
Methodist Church of Brooklyn,
and nearly a half-century later, he
recalled his shock at confronting the
urban environment. The city, he said,
"was a thing stupendous and
overpowering, a mighty monster, with
portentous energies; the sense
of its power to absorb human
personalities and to shape human des-
tinies was often vivid and
painful." Referring to his own early life
spent "in the solitude of a back
country farm," Gladden wondered in
looking at Brooklyn
whether in liberating the force which
gathers men into cities, and equip-
ping it with steam and electricity, a
power had not been created which was
stronger than the intelligence which
seeks to control it; whether such aggre-
gations of humanity, with wills no
better socialized than those of the aver-
age nineteenth-century American, are not
by their own action self-destruc-
tive. I do not mean that I reasoned out
this query, at that time; but some
sense of the appalling nature of the municipal
problem was certainly present
with me.14
The trauma of beginning his ministry in
what he plainly perceived as a hos-
12. John W. Buckham, Progressive
Religious Thought in America (Boston,
1919), 217, 231.
13. Gladden, Recollections (Boston,
1909); Dorn, Gladden, 3-70; Handy, Social Gos-
pel, 19-32.
14. Gladden. Recollections, 90-91.
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Washington Gladden 155 |
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tile and alien environment, coupled with tensions within the church, financial pressures, and the turmoil of New York before the Civil War combined to bring on a nervous collapse. Gladden resigned his post in 1861 and assumed a part-time preaching position in suburban Morrisania, now part of the Bronx. In 1866, Gladden moved to North Adams, a growing textile town in western Massachusetts, calling the change "a most grateful experi- ence." Part of his joy in moving was that a smaller town presented a more favorable arena for pastoral work. Those ministers who work in large cities "are greatly handicapped by the social conditions; . .. the minister who supposes that his influence is sure to be extended by removal to a bigger city does not quite comprehend the situation." He was impressed by the democratic spirit of North Adams, the town meetings, and the easy relations between different classes of people, but it was in North Adams that Gladden gradually became sensitive |
156 OHIO HISTORY
to the gravity of the "industrial
problem" and the conflict between
capital and labor.15
In 1871, Gladden returned to New York to
pursue what he felt was
an opportunity to extend his influence,
this time as the religious editor
of the Independent, a weekly
paper with more than one million sub-
scribers. His arrival in New York
coincided with the crusade against
the Tweed Ring led by Harper's Weekly
and the New York Times. The
Independent denounced the Tweed Ring as "a corrupt,
self-consti-
tuted and practically self-elected
oligarchy,"16 and during the summer
of 1871 when the editor was on vacation,
Gladden was left in complete
charge of the editorial page. When Tweed
asked the public, "What are
you going to do about it?" Gladden
answered in the Independent:
We are going to turn you and all your
creatures out of your offices.
. . . We are going to get back as much
as we can of the booty you have stolen.
We are going to use our best endeavors
to send you to your own place, the pen-
itentiary. You have been guilty of the
most staring and stupendous frauds;
and we do not intend to admit, until we
are compelled to do so, that men in
office can commit such frauds without
incurring the vengeance of the law.
At any rate, we are going to make this
city and the whole country too hot for
you.17
The entire incident, Gladden recalled,
was one of those opportunities that
"make life worth living"
because "it was one of the times in my life
when I have come across something that
needed to be hit and have
had a chance to strike hard." The
experience showed him "a fearful
example of the criminal neglect of duty
of which the citizens of a mu-
nicipality can be guilty, and of the
extent to which they can be robbed
and victimized, without
resistance."18 Gladden's encounter with the
Tweed Ring gave him an enduring concern
with reform in New York
City and with the prevention of
corruption in municipal government.
Gladden's relationship with the Independent's
editors deteriorated,
in part because of the paper's virulent,
Republican partisanship in the
campaign of 1872, but even more because
of his objections to the
morality of listing book advertisements
as if they were editorial en-
dorsements. He left the paper in 1875
without a job but was soon called
to the First Congregational Church of
Springfield, Massachusetts.
His ministry there marked the beginning
of his maturation as a social
15. Ibid., 158-75. The town of
Adams grew from 6,024 in 1860 to 12,090 in 1870.
Population of the United States in
1860 (Washington, 1864), 220; Statistics
of the Uni-
ted States . . . (Washington, 1872), 165. North Adams was not separately
incor-
porated as a town until 1877.
16. Independent, April 13, 1871.
17. Ibid., 4.
18. Gladden, Recollections, 205,
207.
Washington Gladden 157
gospel minister, particularly in his
approach to the problem of indus-
trialization. In 1876, he published Working
People and Their Employ-
ers, one of the earliest analyses of the industrial problem
and called
by one historian "one of the first
mile-posts set by American social
Christianity."19
Although Gladden's awareness of the
problem of industrialization
in North Adams and Springfield and the problem
of urbanization in
New York had been awakened, his analysis
of these social problems
was still in its embryonic stages. His
writing had the style and content
of devotional tracts with an occasional
emphasis on the Christian's
responsibility for good government. His
moderate, cautious approach
to reform is reflected in The
Christian Way: Whither It Leads and
How to Go On (1877), in which he suggested a rather constrained
view of Christian social action.
"What is assumed by the government,"
Gladden wrote, "is not withdrawn
from the sphere of Christian activ-
ity, because the Christian is a citizen,
and it is part of his Christian
duty to see to it that the government is
wisely chosen, and that it per-
forms its duties."20
Gladden confronted directly the problems
of urbanization when he
moved in 1882 to Columbus, Ohio, to
begin his ministry at the First
Congregational Church. This was
Gladden's pulpit for more than thirty
years, during which time his ideas about
the church and the city were
transformed. In contrast to North Adams
and Springfield, which had
relatively good municipal governments,
Columbus presented all the
problems of a rapidly urbanizing city
and a state legislature during a
period of legislative reform. Gladden's
church was located just across
the street from the state capitol, and
he often invited politicians to ser-
vices and used the opportunity to advise
them about the proper
course of action on a given legislative
issue. "The pulpit is not the
place for partisan politics," he
said with undoubtedly some difficulty,
"but the pulpit is the place for
enforcing upon the consciences of citi-
zens the solemnity and sacredness of the
obligations which rest upon
them, and their duty to discharge these
obligations."21
In Columbus, Gladden developed a
preaching technique which
proved to be successful in ministering
to his congregation while also
satisfying his desire to broaden the
sphere of the church's influence.
On Sunday mornings he would preach on
religious problems of the in-
dividual; on Sunday evenings he would
preach on social, literary,
or political issues. The morning sermons
were evangelical in charac-
19. Hopkins, Rise of the Social
Gospel, 27.
20. The Christian Way: Whither It
Leads and How to Go On (New York, 1877),
114-15.
21. Ruling Ideas of the
Present Age (Boston, 1895), 183.
158 OHIO
HISTORY
ter, emphasizing the necessity of an
individual decision for Christ and
the importance of maturing in one's
faith. The evening sermons dis-
cussed the viability of different types
of socialism, the responsibility
of newspapers, urban and industrial
problems, sketches of political
leaders (Booker T. Washington, Charles
Sumner, Theodore Roose-
velt, Seth Low, Jane Addams, Henry
George) as well as literary figures
(Thomas Carlyle, William Dean Howells,
Edward Bellamy, Robert
and Elizabeth Browning, Tennyson,
Dickens, Emerson). Less than
one-third of his morning congregation
attended in the evening; nev-
ertheless, the evening congregation was
predominantly composed of
people who were non-members and of lower
economic status than the
morning group, and they filled
three-quarters of the sanctuary. This
shrewd division of labor enabled Gladden
both to serve the more con-
servative members of his church and to
pursue his reform activities in
Columbus.22
The capital of Ohio provided an
excellent forum for Gladden's so-
cial proclamations and spurred the
development of his ideas on urban
as well as economic reform. Like most cities
in late nineteenth-cen-
tury America, Columbus was growing
rapidly. During the decade
from 1880 to 1890, which included the
first years of his ministry there,
Columbus grew from 51,674 to 90,398, a
75 percent rate of growth and
the highest in Ohio. By 1910, the
population was more than 180,000.23
Most of this growth was due to white
migration from rural areas to
the city, and it was not until after
1900 that blacks began to supplement
the population growth.24 Columbus'
economic life was based on its
location as a center of trade and its
small and varied industries brew-
eries and distilleries, textiles, flour,
paper, furniture, building mater-
ials, and leather goods.25
Gladden's early concern for urban reform
in Columbus was con-
fined to corruption in city government
and the enforcement of liquor
laws. Soon after his arrival, he called
the city "undoubtedly the worst
governed of the cities of Ohio,"26
and in a later sermon he gave an ex-
22. Dorn, Gladden, has an
excellent description of Gladden's relationship with the
Columbus church, 71-108.
23. Ibid., 307.
24. J. S. Himes, Jr., "Forty Years
of Negro Life in Columbus, Ohio," Journal of
Negro History, XXVII (1942), 133-54.
25. Lyder L. Unstad, "A Survey of
the Industrial and Economic Development in
Central Ohio, with Special Reference to
Columbus, 1797-1872" (Ph.D. dissertation,
Ohio State University, 1937), 520-50;
Alfred E. Lee, History of the City of Columbus
(New York, 1892), II, 221-371, 447-564;
Opha Moore, History of Franklin County, Ohio
(Topeka and Indianapolis, 1930), 3 vols.
26. "What Will Become of
Columbus," March 15, 1885, The Papers of Washington
Gladden, Ohio Historical Society,
Columbus, Ohio (hereafter cited Gladden Papers).
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Washington Gladden 159 |
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tended account of the condition of the city in the 1880s. Public offi- cials, he recalled,
were often drunk in their offices. We had shooting affrays in the public places which were treated as jokes by the magistrates. We had news- papers of large circulation which were supported by blackmail, which were mainly devoted to the villification and assassination of character of private persons .... The gambling houses were as wide open and as well-known as the restaurants, the big gamblers were conspicuous personages on the public sheets . . . and the newspapers occasionaly (sic) reported on the amounts won in gaming.27
To awaken his parishioners and the citizens of Columbus to the problems of the city, Gladden lashed out at public apathy about political issues. He constantly admonished his congregation that as Christians they had a responsibility for the political order. "A man who will neglect the primaries of his party to go to a prayer meeting," he proclaimed,
27. Untitled sermon, February 26, 1911, Ibid.; Dorn, Gladden, 307-08. |
160 OHIO HISTORY
"is a mighty poor Christian."28
"The lack of public spirit," he la-
mented, produced not only corrupt
government but a failure to estab-
lish public institutions such as
orphanages, old people's homes, li-
braries, and art galleries. "The
duty of governing this city is yours,"
he declared, "and you can do it if
you will."29
Gladden linked the corruption in city
hall to the problem of liquor
law enforcement, and he gradually
intensified his attack. By 1886 he
was demanding the boycott in a local
election of candidates whose
personal habits of temperance were not
"correct": "No man who is ad-
dicted to the use of strong drink is fit
to serve the public in any re-
sponsible position." In the absence
of any effective liquor laws, Glad-
den argued, the Christian's only weapon
was "purely moral influ-
ences."30 He continued
to campaign for effective legislation to control
the sale of liquor, but he doubted the
wisdom of prohibition, a posi-
tion which earned him the wrath of many
in the anti-saloon move-
ment.31 By 1888 Columbus did
secure a measure of control over the
saloons, and Gladden's concern rose and
fell with the degree of en-
forcement by different administrations
in city hall.32
Throughout the 1880s, Gladden's concern
for effective liquor legis-
lation slowly led him to examine the
structure of city government and
to realize that effective urban
political reforms could be undertaken
and preserved only after municipal
government was strengthened.
This awareness coincided with his
increasing influence in and expo-
sure to the burgeoning social gospel
movement. In 1885 he preached
at Josiah Strong's installation service
in Cincinnati and spoke at the
Interdenominational Congress on social
problems convened by Strong
that same year.33
The most profound impact on Gladden's
perception of the scope of
urban reform came at the Washington
conference of the Evangelical
Alliance in December 1887. He addressed
the conference on "The
28. "After the Elections,"
October 14, 1883, Gladden Papers.
29. "What Will Become of
Columbus," March 15, 1885; "The Shepherdless Mul-
titudes," February 12, 1885, Ibid.
30. "Good Morals in Columbus,"
March 21, 1886; cf. "The State and Temperance,"
February 14, 1886; "Good Order and
Morals in Columbus," May 5, 1887 (?), Ibid.
31. Dorn, Gladden, 309-10. In the
summer of 1887, Gladden collected statistics on
liquor laws and enforcement in other
cities; he invited municipal officials to hear his
report which was "not flattering to
local pride." Ohio State Journal, September 3, 5,
1887.
32. He hailed the effective liquor
legislation and enforcement of those laws of 1888
in a sermon, "And There Was Great
Joy in That City," May 13, 1888, Gladden Papers;
for a description of Gladden's
continuing temperance battle, see Dorn, Gladden, 303-48.
33. "The Shepherdless
Multitudes," Christian Union, December 17, 1885, 6-8; Hop-
kins, Rise of the Social Gospel, 113;
May, Protestant Churches and Industrial Ameri-
ca, 194.
Washington Gladden
161
Necessity of Co-operation in Christian
Work," and there he met Seth
Low, who had pioneered the "federal
plan" in Brooklyn,34 and he
brought Low to speak in Columbus the
same month.35 In Washington,
Gladden also heard addresses ranging
from Princeton President
James McCosh's analysis of the problem
of capital and labor to Daniel
Dorchester's description of "The
City as a Peril."36
Shortly after his return from
Washington, Gladden delivered what
was probably his first systematic
treatment of the task of urban re-
form. Significantly, the sermon suggests
that he had moved beyond
the alarm of Dorchester and many other
social gospel ministers, for
he declared that "to say that the
city as such is a peril would be to in-
dict civilization or indeed human
nature." And yet, Gladden was not
willing to accept the city as it was.
"The sources of our peril are very
largely in our cities," he said.
"Those congestions of vice and ignor-
ance and poverty and crime and alienism
which we are permitting to
form in our cities, and which are
rapidly assuming social and even anti-
social conditions, are full of danger to
the national life." Among the
dangers he cited were the disintegrating
effects of urban life on the fam-
ily, the urban concentrations of wealth,
the alienation of urban dwell-
ers from the church, conflict between
labor and capital, and the prev-
alence of illiteracy. "The city
ought to be the flower of civilization,"
he insisted; "by careless or
vicious management it may easily become
the smut of civilization."37
Here is the ideal with which Gladden
measured the reality of nine-
teenth-century urban life. The city was
either the flower or smut of
civilization. He accepted urbanization
as progress, but he was unwill-
ing to accept the disintegrating forces
which accompanied it. And yet,
Gladden's prescriptions for the city in
1888 contained an uneasy alli-
ance of urbanism and agrarianism.
Saloons and social vice had to be
curbed, immigration restricted, and
people educated "to shun the curse
of strong drink" and to prevent
socialism and anarchism. At the same
time, municipal government should be
expanded and made more ef-
fective; labor disputes ought to be
arbitrated by law; and "wise legis-
lation" should establish a
"more equitable distribution of wealth."38
The Washington conference, in sum,
deepened Gladden's aware-
34. The federal plan called for a single
executive, the mayor, and a legislative
council. Administrative positions would
be filled by the mayor, rather than elected,
because corrupt officials could then be
removed more quickly.
35. Dorn, Gladden, 312.
36. The papers and addresses were
published as National Perils and Opportunities
(New York, 1887).
37. "The Weapons of Our
Warfare," February 1888, Gladden Papers.
38. Ibid.
162 OHIO HISTORY
ness of both the peril and the promise
of the city. At once he began a
campaign for the institution of the
"federal plan" in Columbus.39 It
appealed to Gladden and his
predominantly middle-class congregation
because of its virtues of
"efficiency" and "rationality." He defended
the proposal as "the dictate of
good common sense, good business
sense, and good political sense; . . .
it is the rational way of organiz-
ing city government."40
A middle-class bias pervaded Gladden's
entire program of urban re-
form. The rationality and efficiency of
the "federal plan" were attrac-
tive not only to him but also to the
Columbus Board of Trade. Initially
unsuccessful in convincing the state
legislature of the federal plan's
validity, Gladden and the Board of Trade
continued to agitate for a re-
vision of the city's charter. In 1892,
the Board of Trade circulated
Gladden's address, "The Government
of Cities," to members of the
legislature with a covering letter from
the Board's president, William
F. Burdell, who praised Gladden's
position as "worthy of the candid
consideration of all men." There is
little wonder why Gladden received
such an endorsement from the Board; in
the speech he stated that the
Board should undertake the
reorganization of city government. This
he felt was "axiomatic"
because the Board was non-partisan. The
federal plan was "not the ideal
plan," he said, but the principal objec-
tions to it were "superficial and
frivolous." A convention to draw up
a new municipal charter was convened in
December 1892, and by
April 1893 the legislature approved the
reorganization of Columbus'
municipal government along the lines of the
federal plan. A liberal
Democrat, George Karb, was elected
mayor, and in Gladden's estima-
tion Columbus "never enjoyed so
excellent an administration."41
The influence of Gladden's participation
in urban reform and his
deepening awareness of the problem of
urbanization are also reflected
in his changing conception of the
church. In 1892 he proposed what
he called "a new theory of the
church" which he based on the New
Testament. "The municipal idea of
the church," he said, "is founded
on the idea that the primary business of
the Christians in any com-
munity is to Christianize that
community." To that end he proposed
that all the Christian churches of a
city should unite in a "municipal
church" to carry on the work of
social welfare and to reach the people
of the city through a combined effort.
This idea did not include the
39. For a contemporary account of the
fight for the federal plan, see Lee, History
of the City of Columbus, II, 493-95.
40. Gladden, Recollections, 332;
"The Federal Plan in Municipal Government"
(1888), Gladden Papers; Ruling Ideas
of the Present Age, 176.
41. Columbus Ohio State Journal, November
2, 1892; Dorn, Gladden, 313-16.
Washington Gladden
163
abolition of local congregations but the
joining together of all churches
"to develop a municipal
consciousness."42
Gladden's proposal is indicative of his
response to the disintegra-
ting forces of urbanization which
produced what he called "cutthroat
sectarianism" and
"overchurched" towns. In addition, it reflects Glad-
den's desire to recreate a sense of
community in the city on a more
unified basis "a municipal
consciousness." Urbanization thus en-
couraged the early development of the
ecumenical movement by
demonstrating the need for the churches
to unite their efforts. The
results of this awareness in the church
are seen not only in the creation
of the Federal Council of Churches in
1908 but also in the several
federations of churches that were
established in urban areas and the
support for other alliances for national
and foreign missionary work.
Gladden's greater understanding of the
importance of the city, as
well as his own middle-class orientation
toward urban reform, is illus-
trated by his publication of the Cosmopolis
City Club in 1893. First
serialized in the Century magazine
during early 1893 and then printed
separately later in the year,43
the short story described a reform
movement in the hypothetical city of
Cosmopolis. The account closely
paralleled conditions in Columbus, but
Gladden's description was
basically his proposal for the ideal
type and methods of municipal re-
form. As Gladden summarized the story,
"it was an imaginary tale,
showing how a group of men in an
American city organized a club for
the study of municipal abuses, and how
they threshed out among them-
selves the whole problem of municipal
organization." Gladden noted
with pride in his autobiography that
twenty-six such clubs were formed
44
the following year.
Gladden's Cosmopolis City Club was made
up of a cross section of
the population, but his description of
the group makes quite clear the
middle-class domination of the reform
effort. The head of the group was
a municipal judge, and the leaders of
the various investigating com-
mittees included a teacher, a minister,
and a businessman. A labor
leader and some of his associates were
among the group, but Gladden's
account shows that they were chosen for
their deference to the others'
42. "The Municipal Idea of the
Church," Review of Reviews, VI (October 1892),
305-07. Gladden defended the idea again
as late as 1910 in "The Municipal Church,"
Century, LXXX (August 1910), 493-99.
43. The Cosmopolis City Club (New
York, 1893). "The Cosmopolis City Club,"
Century, XLV (January-March 1893), 395-406, 566-76, 780-92. The
new importance
which Gladden attached to urban reform
is seen by comparing "The Cosmopolis
City Club" with "The Christian
League of Connecticut," Century, XXV (November
1882), 50-60, (December 1882), 181-91,
(January 1883), 339-49; XXVI (May 1883),
65-79.
44. Gladden, Recollections, 329-30.
164 OHIO HISTORY
authority. After public meetings and
pressure on the legislature, the
group succeeded in securing a revision
of the municipal government
along the lines of the federal plan.45
One of the most interesting suggestions
in Gladden's story was his
theory that because national political
parties did not pay close atten-
tion to the problems of the city,
independent municipal parties would
develop to secure legislation to
alleviate urban problems. This idea
embodied the implication that the city
would come to dominate the
nation, and these parties would
"gradually become national parties,
swallowing up 'the ancient forms of
party strife,' and leading in the
issues of national dispensation."46
This was practically Gladden's only
mention of the idea of municipal
parties, and there is no indication
that he took any steps to found such a
party, even in Columbus. How-
ever, it is a striking example of the
way in which the city had altered
his ideas about the political structure
of the nation and his desire that
the government of the nation should
serve the new urban centers of
population and industry.
In 1897 Gladden published Social
Facts and Forces, his most com-
prehensive and systematic discussion of
the city and its problems up
to that time. In many respects, this
book represents a turning point in
Gladden's development of the social
gospel. After 1897 his sermons,
writings, and activities indicate that
the city overshadowed the prob-
lem of industrialization as his chief
concern. While his analysis of
urbanization in Social Facts and
Forces still contains the combination
of agrarianism and urbanism which had
characterized so much of his
earlier writings and sermons, it also
includes a much more complete
and eloquent embracing of the city and
its promise for human life.
Noting that he would "treat the
city as a social fact," Gladden de-
fined the city in terms of its social
inter-relatedness. The emergence
of the city in American life was not
cause for alarm, he insisted. Rath-
er, the city represented both the apex
of civilization and God's inten-
tion for people living together. The
growth of cities, he said, was due
to the fact that "men are growing
more social. They like to be together;
they need one another; as they rise in
the scale of civilization, the
development of their higher nature, the
enlargement of their sympa-
thies draw them into closer
fellowship." The growing desire to live
together "is primarily the divine
element in humanity. . . . The vision
of the Apocalypse which shows us the
glorified humanity dwelling in
a city is a true insight."47
45. "Cosmopolis City Club,"
780-92.
46. Ibid., 792.
47. Social Facts and Forces (New
York, 1897), 155-57.
Washington Gladden 165
Conceding that "lesser and lower
causes" were at work in producing
cities, Gladden argued that the root of
all the city's deficiencies was
city hall, which usually failed to
fulfill its function of promoting the
public welfare. Gladden's solution for
the problem of corrupt munici-
pal government, already asserted in the
arena of Columbus politics,
was moral individuals, which in his
terms meant quite clearly people
from the middle and upper classes,
especially businessmen. "Certain-
ly you need and must have your very best
men, if you want good gov-
ernment," he wrote. While in Europe
these men are involved and do
govern, "in America, with one
consent, they flatly refuse. That is the
simple explanation of the existing
conditions."48 Gladden's solution to
municipal problems and corruption was
thoroughly progressive in his
emphasis upon the need for the middle
class to assert itself and take
control of the government which had
fallen into the hands of "the
boodlers."
Although Gladden had no intention of
condemning the city, but
wished instead to purify it and restore
good government to its citizens,
his analysis is even more striking for
its conception of the expanded
sphere of municipal government
activities. Because city government
often touches the lives of individuals
and is in closest relationship to
the people, he asserted, "the scope
of city government must need be
far more comprehensive than that of the
government of the state or of
the nation."49
Throughout Gladden's entire discussion
of the city, its plight, and
its responsibility was the recognition
that "the city is becoming a
more and more important factor in our
national life" and that "the
problem of the city is becoming for
America an urgent problem."
Drawing on centuries of Christian
political thought since Paul's letter
to the Romans, Gladden identified the
city as "the vicegerent and rep-
resentative of God to establish justice
and righteousness."50 Against
that ideal, Gladden proclaimed, the city
failed miserably. There was
no longing here for an irrecoverable
agrarian past; rather, Gladden
was revolted by what the city was in
comparison to what it could be.
There was no desire here to flee the
city; rather, Gladden wished to
control urbanization and support the
crusade for good city govern-
ment.
After the publication of Social Facts
and Forces in 1897, Gladden
increasingly defended the city and held
up an ideal against which con-
temporary cities could be judged. In a
sermon, "The City That Ought
48. Ibid., 164-65, 170, 174, 179.
49. Ibid., 164-65.
50. Ibid., 159, 186-87.
|
166 OHIO HISTORY |
|
|
|
to Be" (1897), Gladden described the ideal urban center as a place where human rights were preserved, where morality prevailed, where education flourished, and where the "welfare and happiness" of its citizens were protected. Even more significantly, Gladden in this ser- mon identified the Kingdom of God with the social organization of the city, a theme to which he would return with greater frequency in the next decade. When the process of reform was completed in the city, and when the ideals of the Kingdom of God had been realized, Glad- den stated, "the city that ought to be, the New Columbus, will begin to descend out of heaven from God."51 This identification of the Kingdom of God with the city appears even more explicitly in Gladden's sermon, "What Can We Do for the City,"
51. "The City That Ought to Be," April 4, 1897, Gladden Papers. |
Washington Gladden
167
which he preached in 1899. The city, he
declared, "is not a secular in-
stitution; it is just as sacred, just as
divinely ordained as the church is."
What were once the responsibilities of
the church had now become the
responsibilities of the city-education
and caring for the poor-and these
new functions made the city more
important and more sacred. By
1899, he had also concluded that
effective municipal government could
not be achieved until the state
legislature completely reformed and
unified the municipal codes, still
largely along the lines of the federal
plan. "I know of nothing within our
power," he told his congregation
and members of the Ohio legislature,
"as citizens of Ohio, which
would do more to hasten the coming of
that Kingdom than the adop-
tion by our legislature of the main
features of this municipal code."52
Sermons and lectures such as these, as
well as Gladden's firmly
established reputation in municipal
reform, brought him the oppor-
tunity to put his theories into action
in 1900 when he was elected to a
two-year term on the Columbus City
Council. Gladden apparently did
little to campaign for the office, but
he plainly indicated his willingness
to serve in a letter to the Columbus
newspapers.53 During his tenure
as a council member, Gladden confronted
the problems of municipal
government directly, particularly the
problem of public service cor-
porations. Early in his term he became
convinced, as he wrote in a na-
tional magazine, "that nothing will
reach the case except public own-
ership and control of public service
monopolies." This was required
"by the elementary principles of
democratic government" because
monopolies meant in effect
"taxation without representation." He
also advocated the election of public
service corporation officials.54
Gladden was unsuccessful in achieving
such a far-reaching reform
in Columbus, but he did succeed in
developing legislation favorable to
the city in three areas-streetcar
franchises, municipal lighting, and gas
franchises. As a member of the council's
committee on railroads and
viaducts, Gladden was able to join
forces with other council members
to force greater compensation from the
Columbus Street Railway
Company as well as to obtain a fare
reduction. In addition, Gladden
directed a complicated fight in the
council for a publicly-owned elec-
tric plant. Although he suffered many
set-backs, he won approval in
1902 of a bond issue to provide money to
build the plant, and in 1905,
52. "What Can We Do for the
City," November 19, 1899, Ibid. See also Gladden's
appeal to businessmen for support in
leading the fight for reform, "The Banker and the
City," October 25, 1900, Ibid.
53. Gladden, Recollections, 327.
See also Dorn, Gladden, 319-22.
54. "Public Service Corporations
and City Governments," Outlook, LXVI (October
27, 1900), 502-08; cf. an untitled,
undated manuscript on the same subject, Box 54,
Gladden Papers.
168 OHIO HISTORY
the council was told that the cost to
the voters was substantially less
than the former contract price. During
negotiations with the Central
Ohio Natural Gas and Fuel Company,
Gladden fought to maintain
the present gas rate; however, by
threatening to discontinue service,
the company was able to secure its
increases. Such tactics further
strengthened Gladden's belief in public
ownership of utilities.55
Gladden refused to run again after his
term expired in 1902, but he
continued to speak out on municipal
affairs, particularly the unification
of the municipal code for Ohio cities.
In September 1902, he told the
members of the state legislature in his
congregation that the ignorance
of municipal affairs of most legislators
was "simply appalling." The
Old Testament prophets, he said,
"had a great deal more to say about
municipal affairs than about theological
questions"; the law-makers
should listen to the "voice of
Jehovah" on the issue of the municipal
code. Gladden left little doubt how the
legislators ought to vote to be
in agreement with God's will, but a
majority apparently saw it differ-
ently. Municipal legislation was passed,
but a more complete reform
of the state municipal code was delayed
until 1912 when Ohio pro-
gressives succeeded in revising the
state's constitution.56
Gladden's activity in politics brought
him greater national attention
and an invitation from Yale in 1902 to
deliver the Lyman Beecher
lectures, published under the title Social
Salvation. Addressing him-
self to the problems of the city, he
demonstrated his consciousness of
the dominant role which the city had
assumed in American life and his
own conviction that the problem of
urbanization was the foremost
problem in American society. "Many
of you will be called to work in
the cities," he told the Yale
students; "all of you will find that your
lives and your labors are more or less
affected by conditions in the cit-
ies, for the cities are becoming, more
and more a dominating influence
in our whole national life. . . . Of all
the social questions confronting
us, this seems to me to be the most difficult,
the most urgent, the most
portentous."57
Gladden appealed to the seminary
students not to reject the city or
its problems, and by again identifying
the Kingdom of God with the
city, he offered them a striking
statement of his concern for the city
and his utopian optimism that the ideal
city could be established. "The
people of the cities," he told
them:
must have some conception of what a
well-governed city would be. We
55. Dorn, Gladden, 322-33; Hoyt
L. Warner, Progressivism in Ohio, 1897-1917 (Co-
lumbus, 1964), 41, 44-45, 53.
56. Dorn, Gladden, 333-48;
Warner, Progressivism in Ohio, 312-53, 440-66.
57. Social Salvation (Boston,
1902), 205-06.
Washington Gladden 169
must have ideals, and keep them steadily
before our eyes. The seer in the
book of Revelation saw the Holy City,
the New Jerusalem, descending out of
heaven from God. . . . We must see the
New London, the New Boston, the
New Chicago, the New New York; the city that ought to
be; the regenerated,
purified, redeemed city; we must see it,
and believe in it, and be ready to work
and suffer to bring it down to earth.58
Such a city, in Gladden's vision, was
characterized by good government;
industry which did not exploit the
workers or the city at large; a degree
of economic socialism to secure
"vast benefits" for the people; parks,
libraries, art galleries, and
orchestras; a reasonably equal distribution
of wealth; and no unemployment. Against
the touchstone of such an
ideal, Gladden admitted, the
contemporary city stood in drastic need
of reform. But like so many of his
social gospel contemporaries, he in-
sisted that only the people themselves
could realize the Holy City. "No
legions of angels are coming down from
heaven to regenerate our
cities," he said. "The truth
is that democracy, with universal suffrage,
is our dispensation. ... If we are to be
saved at all, we must be saved
by the people; if we are to be reformed,
the reform must spring from
the intelligent choice of the
people."59
Gladden's faith in democracy tempered
and shaped the nature of all
his reform proposals, and despite his
disparaging remarks about the
debasing influence of the lower classes
upon the morality and intelli-
gence of the city, he did not advocate
blocking them out of the politi-
cal process. On the contrary, he said,
"we need not imagine that we
are somehow going to organize a power
which will fence these people
in and hold them down and keep them
harmless-that we shall get
good government by suppressing them;
that policy will never work."
Similarly, Gladden argued that the
Kingdom of God brought to earth
as a city must not be exclusive. It
"includes all the people, young and
old, rich and poor, good and bad, black
and white, native born and
foreign born, all the people of the
city."60 Gladden rarely demonstrated
the nativistic thinking of his
contemporary, Josiah Strong, and as early
as the 1890s he had pointedly attacked
the anti-Catholicism of the
American Protective Association.61
Even in the area of civil rights,
Gladden demonstrated a concern for
the rights of black Americans, both in
Columbus and nationally
through his leadership in the American
Missionary Association. He
58. Ibid., 221.
59. Ibid., 222-23, 224, 225.
60. Ibid., 226-27; The
Interpreter (Boston, 1918), 263.
61. "The Anti-Catholic
Crusade," Century, XLVII (March 1884), 789-95. Because
of his views, Gladden was blocked from
becoming president of Ohio State Univer-
sity by state legislators who were
influenced by the A.P.A., Dorn, Gladden, 117-21.
170 OHIO HISTORY
frequently invited black leaders to
speak in his church, including Book-
er T. Washington, Bishop Benjamin T.
Tanner, Henry H. Proctor, and
the Fisk Jubilee Singers. Though often
paternalistic, Gladden rain-
tained a good relationship with the
black community in Columbus,
and in 1915 he was invited to speak at
the fiftieth anniversary celebra-
tion of emancipation held in the city.62
Gladden's goal for the process of
urbanization was, therefore, that
the city serve as an assimilating,
integrating, humanizing, and pro-
gressive force in society. For Gladden,
the city was in fact the center
of society, a dynamic organism capable
of embracing all people and
maintaining growth, morality, and public
welfare.
Throughout the remainder of his life
until his death in 1918, Gladden
returned repeatedly to the theme of the
Kingdom of God coming to
earth as a city, and he increasingly
identified that temporal Kingdom
with the political process of American
city government. In 1904 he
wrote that "the question of the
city is the most urgent of all our social
problems" and that "if the
kingdom of heaven ever comes to your city,
it will come in and through City Hall;
that is the place where it will be
first visible." In 1909 he preached
a remarkable sermon. "The City as
a Savior," in which he repeated his
claim that the Kingdom would
come through municipal government. Once
people began to look for
God in city hall, he wryly added,
"doubtless they will feel the need of
cleansing the place for his abode."
And in his last book in 1918, he
wrote that the Kingdom of God
"includes the government of your
city or your town-all the civic
organizations and agencies for the pres-
ervation of the peace and the promotion
of public welfare that have
their headquarters in the city hall.
This is just as much a part of the
Kingdom of God as the church is; . . .
its functions are just as relig-
ious as the functions of the church."63
Even though Gladden reduced his
activities somewhat during the
last decade of his life, he continued to
participate in projects and move-
ments for urban improvement. In 1905 he
aided his church in estab-
lishing a settlement house in Columbus,
named first the Mansfield
House and after 1920 the Gladden
Community House. Gladden had
also supported the first settlement
house in Columbus, the First Neigh-
borhood Guild, when it was founded in
1898. Although he criticized
62. Ronald C. White, Jr., "Social
Christianity and the Negro in the Progressive
Era, 1890-1920" (Ph.D.
dissertation, Princeton University, 1972), 87-119; Dorn,
Gladden, 291-302.
63. Christianity and Socialism (New
York, 1905), 236, 243-44; "The City as a Sav-
ior," July 18, 1909, Gladden
Papers; The Interpreter, 259; cf. "The Nation and the
Kingdom" (1909), reprinted in
Handy, The Social Gospel, 135-53; "If Christ Came
to the City," March 20, 21, 1913,
Gladden Papers.
Washington Gladden 171
many such houses because they were not
related to the church, Glad-
den called the idea "one of the
most beautiful and noble agencies yet
devised for the promotion of the Kingdom
of God." Since 1889 Glad-
den's church had sponsored the Bethel
Sunday School which con-
ducted a variety of social activities,
but the school suffered varying
fortunes in part because of conflict
between Gladden and the super-
intendent. The settlement house proved
to be far more successful,
becoming the most important such
institution in Columbus for de-
cades.64
Similarly, Gladden was active in
Columbus politics, largely supporting
independent candidates who promised to
enforce the liquor laws, but
also taking an active role in the
growing progressive movement in
Ohio. In 1908 he appeared before the
Ohio House of Representatives
to argue for the extension of direct
legislation, and during the redraft-
ing of the state constitution in 1912,
he served on the committee which
campaigned for various urban reforms.
These included the broaden-
ing of home rule for Ohio cities, the
extension of the urban franchise,
the short ballot, and the initiative and
referendum. By this time Glad-
den had become disillusioned with the
federal plan, and after witness-
ing the success of the commission form
of government in various
cities, he urged its adoption. The
municipal charter for Columbus,
adopted in 1914, basically followed the
federal plan, and although
Gladden was dissatisfied with its final
form, he was gratified by its
provision for home rule.65
Washington Gladden's involvement with
the city and urban reform
spanned more than a half century during
America's most rapid period
of urbanization. In Brooklyn and New
York, he first encountered the
effects of urbanization and the
corruption of municipal government
which plagued American cities of the
period. In North Adams and
Springfield, Massachusetts, he
confronted the problems of industrial-
ization and witnessed the influx of
people to the city from rural areas.
He met all these problems in Columbus
where his awareness of the
importance which the city had assumed
for the church and the nation
developed and matured. Initially, it was
corrupt government and the
enforcement of liquor laws which
attracted his concern, but his percep-
tion of these problems led him to
examine the whole structure of city
government and its new social, economic,
and political responsibili-
ties. The city also changed his
conception of the church, and he saw
a greater need for cooperation and
unified action to meet the human
64. Untitled sermon, December 5, 1897,
Gladden Papers; Dorn, Gladden, 90-101.
65. Untitled address, November 17, 1908,
Gladden Papers; The Government of
Cities (Cleveland, 1912); Warner, Progressivism in Ohio, 298-99,
339-40, 443-45;
Dorn, Gladden, 338-47.
172 OHIO HISTORY
problems in the city. Finally, the city
left an impact on Gladden's
theology, bringing him to identify the
predominant idea of social gos-
pel theology, the Kingdom of God, with
the social organization of
the city.
Historians have long recognized that the
concept of the Kingdom of
God formed the core of social gospel
theology and that this idea be-
came identified with the temporal order;
what has often been over-
looked is that Gladden and other social
gospel ministers viewed the
Kingdom as an ideal city.66 Creation
began in a garden, Josiah Strong
was fond of saying, but the ideal social
order would be realized in a
city, as the book of Revelation stated.67
Herbert Gutman has noted a
similar development in the American
labor movement, when Christian
labor leaders described the union as the
ideal biblical form of social
organization,68 and a
corresponding development in the social gos-
pel movement indicates the impact of
urbanization on American Pro-
testantism. The continuing influence of
a rural ethic cannot be de-
nied, for it appears in both the
rhetoric and program of Gladden in his
preoccupation with the problem of liquor
law enforcement. Nor can
the social gospel be divorced from its
revivalist heritage in its desire
to "Christianize" America.
Nevertheless, in its conception of the so-
cial character of human life, the social
gospel clearly rejected the radi-
cal individualism of revivalism.
What must be emphasized about the social
gospel's perception of
and involvement in urban reform is the
way in which it evolved and
developed, and Gladden's own continuing
flexibility and adaptability
even in his later years is illustrative
of the social gospel at its best. The
critical identification of the Kingdom
of God with the city began to
appear in the social gospel around the
turn of the century. In his
study of poverty in America, Robert H.
Bremner has noted a similar
shift in the conception of poverty
during the same period. No longer
was poverty seen as the result of
individual deficiencies or guilt, but
as a condition produced by an unjust
society.69 The late 1890s were
a critical transition period for
American reform movements, broaden-
ing and maturing them, both in theory
and practice.
66. Strong was, to my knowledge, the
first to make such an identification of the
Kingdom of God with the city in The
New Era (New York, 1893), 202. For Lyman Ab-
bott, see the quotation from him on the
frontispiece of Josiah Strong, The Challenge
of the City (New York, 1907).
67. See, for example, Josiah Strong, The
Twentieth Century City (New York, 1898),
181; Idem., Our World, The New World
Life, 228.
68. Herbert G. Gutman,
"Protestantism and the American Labor Movement: The
Christian Spirit in the Gilded
Age," American Historical Review, LXXII (1966), 74-101.
69. Robert H. Bremner, From the
Depths: The Discovery of Poverty in America (New
York, 1956).
Washington Gladden
173
Rather than viewing the social gospel's
or progressivism's response
to the city as an attempt to recreate an
agrarian ideal in an urbanized
society, it is more accurate to see it
as a new development in the Amer-
ican critique of the city. As Morton
White suggests, the first stage of
this critique prior to the Civil War was
"one in which romanticism was
employed in attacking the city for being
over-civilized"; the second
stage was one in which the "city
was accused of being under-civilized
by anti-, or at least
non-romantics." White further argues that "roman-
tic anti-urbanism cannot be regarded as
a permanent feature of the
American mind. ... The tendency to see
this country's mind as tra-
ditionally romantic is the product of a
misguided philosophy of his-
tory and a failure to assess the facts
of intellectual life after the Civil
War."70 Washington
Gladden and other social gospel ministers were
participants in this non-romantic
critique, faulting the city for what
it had become. For them it should be a
place of parks, music, and art,
of prosperous industries and secure
homes, of good government and
efficient public services. Against such
an ideal, there is little wonder
why they were alarmed at urban
conditions of their day.71
While the social gospel ministers were
not completely urbanized and
did not embrace the city completely,
their heralding of the city's prom-
ise without completely rejecting their
agrarian past helped Ameri-
cans to understand and adjust to a new
social order. Gladden, the farm
boy from Pottsgrove, Pennsylvania, aware
of what urbanization was
doing and could do to American life, was
one of those who helped
people make that transition. In his
preaching and reform activities,
he helped both to prepare people for the
city and to adapt the city to
meet their needs.
This is not to say that the social
gospel was without its defects. One
might criticize Gladden and his
colleagues for their failure to see, the
limited nature of the reforms they
sought or their naive idealism and
faith in human ability to establish the
Kingdom of God and its Holy
City on earth. In political terms,
Gladden was obviously guilty of mis-
understanding the difficulty of
establishing and preserving reforms,
and his moderate proposals never
included a far-reaching redistribu-
tion of political or economic power
beyond the "better classes." In
theological terms, he might be
criticized, as Reinhold Niebuhr did,
for failing to see the dimensions of
human self-interest in any politi-
cal activity. He can even be faulted for
identifying the Kingdom of
70. Morton White, "Two Stages in
the Critique of the American City," The Histor-
ian and the City, eds. Oscar Handlin and John Burchard (Cambridge, 1963),
84-94.
71. For examples of Gladden's view of
what the cultural life of cities should be, see
"The Social Significance of
Pictures," February 24, 1901; "The Social Significance
of Music," March 3, 1901, Gladden
Papers.
174 OHIO
HISTORY
God with the city, for this inevitably
subjected people to all the vicis-
situdes of social life and completely
temporalized their existence.
And yet, it is also clear that as a
bridge between a rural America
and an industrialized, urban society,
the social gospel tried to ease the
transition and transformation of a
public caught between two worlds.
In its program, it allied itself with
progressivism and sought to correct
many of the injustices which accompanied
the transformation of
American society. David P. Thelen has
suggested that historians
should concentrate more on what united
the progressive reformers
than
what divided them.72 American Protestantism, particularly
through the proponents of the social
gospel, provided at least part of
the unifying impulse by its
transformation of biblical symbols to an
urbanized society.
72. David P. Thelen, "Social
Tensions and the Origins of Progressivism," Journal
of American History, LVI (1969), 323-41.
JOHN M. MULDER
The Heavenly City and Human Cities:
Washington Gladden and Urban Reform
Historians have generally viewed the
rise of the social gospel dur-
ing the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries as a response to
the problems posed by industrialization,
immigration, and urbaniza-
tion. Ever since the publication of
Arthur M. Schlesinger's pioneering
analysis in 1932,1 historians have
examined American religious
groups, especially American Protestants,
to determine the ways in
which they met the Darwinist challenge
to their system of thought and
the social challenge of a new America.
The subsequent work by C.
Howard Hopkins, Aaron Abell, and Henry
F. May implicitly or ex-
plicitly accepted the framework of
challenge-response posed by
Schlesinger.2 The resulting
interpretation was one which stressed the
importance of social determinants in
this phase of American religious
history.
Another complementary interpretation of
the rise of the social gos-
pel has emerged from American church
historians, most notably H.
Richard Niebuhr, Robert T. Handy, and
Martin E. Marty. They have
emphasized the internal dynamics within
American Protestantism
which remained intact throughout most of
the eighteenth and nine-
teenth centuries but which came to
different expressions under varied
social conditions. Niebuhr noted how
American Protestants in the late
nineteenth century increasingly
identified the Kingdom of God with a
John Mulder is Assistant Professor of
American Church History at Princeton
Theological Seminary, Princeton, New
Jersey.
1. Arthur M. Schlesinger, "A
Critical Period in American Religion," Massachu-
setts Historical
Society Proceedings, LXIV (October
1930-June 1932), 523-46. Schles-
inger's basic approach was supplemented
by the chapter on the church and the city in
his The Rise of the City, 1878-1898 (New
York, 1933).
2. C. Howard Hopkins, The Rise of the
Social Gospel in American Protestantism,
1865-1915 (New Haven, 1940); Aaron Abell, The Urban Impact on
American Prot-
estantism, 1865-1900 (Cambridge, 1943); Henry F. May, The Protestant
Churches
and Industrial America (New York, 1949). May has apparently had some second
thoughts about the validity of the
methodology which he used in writing his book,
originally a doctoral dissertation under
Schlesinger; see his forward to the Harper
Torchbook edition (New York, 1967).
(614) 297-2300