The First Great Awakening in Colonial American Newspapers: A Shifting Story

The Great Awakening of the eighteenth century was both religiously inspired and media driven. No book makes this point more effectively than Lisa Smith’s The First Great Awakening in Colonial American Newspapers. Her remarkable research makes this book a must-read for scholars and students of the Great Awakening. — Thomas S. Kidd, Baylor University

While most previous studies have focused on one or two papers in major cities and often dealt only with one of George Whitefield’s preaching tours, The First Great Awakening in Colonial American Newspapers includes a number of papers from several major cities as well as a number of different colonies. Lisa Smith also looks beyond Whitefield to try and present a broader description of the Great Awakening, the people involved, and its impact. The inclusion of a variety of newspapers enables the author to present an in-depth comparison of how the revival was covered throughout the colonies over time and how people’s reactions changed. The result is a very nuanced study of the press coverage of the revival. Scholars have long thought the Great Awakening was an important event in the development of the colonial newspapers, but Lisa Smith provides the detailed information to clearly back up that generalization. — Carol Sue Humphrey, Oklahoma Baptist University