Religions of America
From Traditional to Alternative – Religious Movements Unique to America
Founded on the ideal of freedom, North America had a unique role as a birthplace for and spread of new religious movements. This provided religious dissenters the opportunity to originate or significantly reshape movements that would become cornerstones of faith for years to come. Religions of America presents scholars and researchers with more than 660,000 pages of content that follow the development of religions and religious movements born in the U.S. from 1820 to 1990. Derived from numerous collections, most notably the American Religions Collection at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Religions of America traces the history and unique characteristics of movements through manuscripts, pamphlets, newsletters, ephemera, and visuals.
INTERDISCIPLINARY OPPORTUNITIES FOR STUDY
Religions of America supports scholars in the discovery of primary source content that ranges far beyond a mere presentation of theological doctrine. The depth of coverage presents opportunities to explore revealing intersections of religion with economics, political science, law, sociology, psychology, gender studies, and numerous other fields. Whether it’s the redefinition of race that inspired the Moorish Temple of Science, the countercultural sentiments that underwrote the Free Peoples Temple, the conflicts to established law presented by Mormon practices, or the separatist energy that invigorated Pentecostalism before its transformative engagement with American politics, Religions of America presents the impact of new religious movements for years to come.
KEY COLLECTIONS FOR COMPREHENSIVE COVERAGE
Cross searchable with other Gale Primary Sources products, the subcollections in Religions of America include The American Religions Collection; The FBI Files on Jonestown, Moorish Science Temple of America, and the Branch Davidians; The Hall-Hoag Collection of Dissenting and Extremist Printed Propaganda; and, Utah and the Mormons. Religions of America also draws on the largest multireligious collection of its kind, assembled by J. Gordon Melton, the premier scholar of twentieth-century American and Canadian religious life.
The American Religions Collection includes materials from Hebrew Christians and Pentecostal groups to Baptist organizations and Grace Gospel organizations. It features serials on neo-Pagan and occult religious traditions as well as important subject files on LGBTQ churches, church-and-state controversies, women and female spirituality, and political extremism.
The FBI Files on Jonestown, Moorish Science Temple of America, and the Branch Davidians explore the Free Peoples Temple in Jonestown; the writings and publications and activities of Drew Ali, founder of the Moorish Science Temple of America in Newark, New Jersey, and Branch Davidian compound negotiation transcripts.
The Hall-Hoag Collection of Dissenting and Extremist Printed Propaganda from Brown University presents rare materials on Christian identity movements from its founding in the late 1940s until the 1990s.
Utah and the Mormons, based on materials from the Western Americana Collection at Yale University, includes periodicals, doctrinal, and controversial works that are pro- and anti-Mormon as well as contemporary works relating to the Latter-Day Saints.
EXPLORE ROOTS OF DISCOVERY AND DIVERSITY
Religions of America provides exceptional coverage of the expression of, and reaction to, various religious movements from Pentecostalism and Mormonism to modern Judeo-Christian organisations (Christian Science, Messianic Judaism) and non-Christian New Thought and Neopagan religions. It also provides robust coverage of alternative, lesser-known, but culturally important religious traditions, including New Age, Neopagan, Wicca, neo-Christian movements (Adventism, Christian Science), and Christian Identity and Fundamentalist movements.
FROM PRIMARY TO REGIONAL & LOCAL ORGANISATIONS
Emphasizing twentieth-century materials, Religions of America focuses on religious movements and their main organising bodies as well as offshoots among regional sects or local churches such as:
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FEATURED TESTIMONIAL
“Religions of America makes available, in one place, many valuable primary sources one could not otherwise access without visiting several archives in person. Multiple advanced search options make it possible to zero in on relevant documents and publications, a task that would be difficult in browsing the original documents within archives…No other major commercial vendor offers a primary source collection on this exact topic.”
- Martha Tanner, Head of Research Services and Archives, Nebraska Wesleyan University
Look Inside
Additional Details
subjects covered
- European Studies
- Judaic & Holocaust Studies
- History
- Humanities & Social Sciences
- Law & Legal Studies
- Political Science
- Politics
- Religion & Philosophy
- Regional History
- Twentieth Century Studies
- U.S. History
- World History
- Current Events
- Social History
Platform Features & Tools
Topic Finder
By grouping commonly occurring themes, this tool reveals hidden connections within search terms—helping to shape research by integrating diverse content with relevant information.
Cross-Search Capability
Search across the content of complementary primary source products, including books, in one united, intuitive environment, enabling innovative new research connections.
Digital Scholar Lab
This collection is available in Gale's Digital Scholar Lab, a cloud-based research platform which brings historical content together with popular text-analysis tools to remove key barriers to entry into the digital humanities.
