Pious Ambitions

"Mary C. Tribble mines a journal and a trove of letters from the Special Collections and Archives of Z. Smith Reynolds Library at Wake Forest University to introduce a significant figure in North Carolina and Baptist history. The writings of Sally Merriam Wait reveal a northernborn woman with anti-slavery leanings engaging with an unfamiliar environment in the slave-holding South. Her ambition led her from young convert in revival-swept New England to devoted wife of Reverend Samuel Wait, the first president and founder of Wake Forest University. Wait's decisions are shaped by a surging evangelical movement, changes in the American economy, the rise of women's social agency, a fracturing of political traditions, and the moral conflicts inherent in a slave economy. The book provides a rare glimpse into the spiritual and worldly education of a young woman of faith at the dawn of market capitalism in Jacksonian America"--

Wall-mounted memorials (or ‘epitaphs’) enjoyed great popularity across the Burgundian Netherlands. Usually installed in churches above graves, they combine images with inscriptions and take the form of sculpted reliefs, brass plaques, or panel paintings. They preserved the memory of the dead and reminded the living to pray for their souls. On occasions, renowned artists like Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden were closely involved in memorials’ creation. In Pious Memories Douglas Brine examines the wall-mounted memorial as a distinct category of funerary monument and shows it to be a significant, if overlooked, aspect of fifteenth-century Netherlandish art. The patronage, functions, and meanings of these objects are considered in the context of contemporary commemorative practices and the culture of memoria. For sample pages click on Google Books button. Brine received the 2015 Arthur Kingsley Porter Prize, for an earlier version of Chapter 5 of Pious Memories, his article, “Jan van Eyck, Canon Joris van der Paele, and the Art of Commemoration,” published in the September 2014 issue of The Art Bulletin.

"As the American republic took shape in the early nineteenth century, tremendous change was dawning. War with Great Britain was on the horizon. The reliable family farm economy was shifting as younger generations moved west and south to pursue new opportunities. Religious revivals inspired the newly converted to spread the gospel and educate young men for the ministry. Even as patriarchal expectations persisted, women gained incremental influence as they emulated role models who were following their higher ambitions through religion, home industry, and benevolent societies. Sarah (Sally) Merriam Wait (1794-1876), came of age during this period of religious awakening and western expansion and was impacted by the transformational forces of these times. This work follows Sally’s journey from Brandon, Vermont in April 1813, when she experienced a spiritual conversion, until May 1831, when, despite her concerns about the “ignorance and bigotry” in the state, she agreed to settle in North Carolina with Baptist minister and educator Samuel Wait. The decision, nearly twenty years in the making, was influenced by the growth of the Baptist denomination, shifts in the economy, increased political tensions, and the constraints that women experienced in actualizing their ambitions. Through a close analysis of hundreds of letters, journals, and documents, I examine the complex combination of theological, ecclesiastical, and cultural factors that led Sally Wait to North Carolina. Sally’s story provides a case study of a nineteeth-century woman’s emotional and religious journey as she negotiated the economic, political, and social changes in the Early Republic." -- page v

This book analyzes Spanish rule and Catholic practice from the consolidation of Spanish control in the Americas in the sixteenth century to the loss of these colonies in the nineteenth century by following the life and afterlife of an accidental martyr, San Felipe de Jésus. Using Mexico City–native San Felipe as the central figure, Conover tracks the global aspirations of imperial Spain in places such as Japan and Rome without losing sight of the local forces affecting Catholicism. He demonstrates the ways Spanish religious attitudes motivated territorial expansion and transformed Catholic worship. Using Mexico City as an example, Conover also shows that the cult of saints continually refreshed the spiritual authority of the Spanish monarch and the message of loyalty of colonial peoples to a devout king. Such a political message in worship, Conover concludes, proved contentious in independent Mexico, thus setting the stage for the momentous conflicts of the nineteenth century in Latin American religious history.

George Santayana probably did more than anyone except Alexis de Tocqueville to shape the critical view of American culture. The great Spanish philosopher and writer coined the phrase "genteel tradition", introducing it to a California audience in 1911. That address appears in this collection of nine essays touching on American idealism and materialism and American endeavor, sacred and profane.