Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-nmvwc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-07T13:06:56.765Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Social Gospel and the Trust-Busters

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Robert R. Roberts
Robert R. Roberts
Affiliation:
Mankato State Teachers College
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

By 1878 the United States stood on the verge of a period of immense consolidation and concentration of business wealth. Already the process was underway by means of pools and marketing agreements, and the powerful “trusts” were in the immediate future. By the turn of the century the characteristic feature of American business was the giant corporation, built on holding companies and interlocking directorates. The existence of such great wealth and power in the hands of a relatively few men posed a question for the interpreters of Christian ethics, and the answers ranged all the way from an idealistic communism to the benefits of stewardship.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 25 , Issue 3 , September 1956 , pp. 239 - 257
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1956

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Nevins, Allan, The Emergence of Modern America, Vol. VIII of The History of American Life, edited by Schlesinger, A. M. and Fox, D. R. (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1927–1948), p. 397.Google Scholar

2. May, Henry F., Protestant Churches and Industrial America (New York: The Ronald Press, 1949), pp. 163, 170, 235.Google Scholar

3. Newton, R. Heber, The Morals of Trade (New York: T. Whittaker, 1876), p. 30.Google Scholar

4. Ibid., p. 33.

5. Ibid.

6. Gladden, Washington, Working People and their Employers (New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1888), pp. 80–88.Google Scholar

7. Ibid., pp. 219–222.

8. Rhodes, Dudley Ward, Creed and Greed (Cincinnati: P. G. Thomson, 1879), p. VI.Google Scholar

9. Ibid.

10. Potter, Henry C., Sermons of the City (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1881), pp. 81–91.Google Scholar

11. Mott, Frank Luther, Golden Multitudes (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1947), p. 8.Google Scholar

12. Strong, Josiah, Our Country, Its Possible Future and Its Present Crisis (rev. ed.; New York: The Baker and Taylor Co., 1891), pp. 16–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13. Ibid., p. 173.

14. Ibid., p. 232.

15. Abbott, Lyman, “Danger Ahead,” The Century Magazine, XXXI (11, 1885), p. 55.Google Scholar

16. Ibid., pp. 55–56.

17. Ibid., pp. 55–58.

18. Ibid.

19. Tarbell, Ida, The Nationalizing of Business, Vol. IX of The History of American Life, edited by Schlesinger, A. M. and Fox, D. R. (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1927–1948), p. 98.Google Scholar

20. Lorimer, George C., Studies in Social Life (Chicago: Belford, Clarke & Co., 1886), p. 47.Google Scholar

21. Ibid., pp. 48–49.

22. Ibid., p. 235.

23. The Christian Union, XXXIII (Jan. 28, 1886), 1.Google Scholar

24. Ibid., XXXIV (November. 4, 1886), 1.

25. Brown, T. Edwin, Studies in Modern Socialism and Labor Problems (New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1886), p. 34.Google Scholar

26. Ibid., pp. 100–101.

27. For a discussion of the social gospel within the various denominations, see May, op. cit., pp. 182–203; Hopkins, Charles H., The Rise of the Social Gospel in American Protestantism 1865–1915 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1940), pp. 280–301.Google Scholar

28. Gabriel, Ralph H., The Course of American Democratic Thought (New York: The Ronald Press, 1940), pp. 298–299.Google Scholar

29. Herron, George B., The Message of Jesus to Men of Wealth (New York: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1891), pp. 10–11.Google Scholar

30. Herron, George B., The Christian Society (New York: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1894), p. 16.Google Scholar

31. Ibid., p. 120.

32. Herron, George B., The Christian State: A Political Vision of Christ (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1895), p. 94.Google Scholar

33. Ibid., pp. 76–78.

34. The Christian Union, XLIX (May 12, 1894), 837.Google Scholar

35. Gladden, Washington, Applied Christianity, Moral Aspects of Social Questions (Boston: Houghton, Mufflin and Co., 1892), p. 47.Google Scholar

36. Gladden, Washington, Ruling Ideas of the Present Age (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1895), p. 77.Google Scholar

37. Gladden, Washington, The New Idolatry and Other Discussions (New York: McClure, Philips and Co., 1905), p. 21.Google Scholar

38. Gladden, Washington, Social Facts and Forces (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1896), p. 114.Google Scholar

39. Ibid., pp. 122–123.

40. Ibid., p. 148.

41. Gladden, , Applied Christianity, p. 17.Google Scholar

42. Gladden, Washington, Christianity and Socialism (New York: Eaton and Maine, 1905), p. 128.Google Scholar

43. Lorimer, George C., Christianity and the Social State (Philadelphia: A. F. Rowland, 1898), pp. 152–153.Google Scholar

44. The Christian Union, XLV (May 7, 1892), 975.Google Scholar

45. Ibid., XLIV (December. 19, 1891), 1205.

46. The Outlook, XXXI (Feb. 2, 1895), 182–183.Google Scholar

47. Ibid. XLVIII (December. 30, 1898), 1222–1223.

48. Ibid., LXII (May 13, 1899), 103.

49. Ibid., LXVI (Oct. 20, 1900), 438.

50. Ibid., LXVI (Oct. 20, 1900), 438–439.