ISSN: 1094-902X
Volume 2, Number 1 (Fall 1998)

RELIGION and the Founding of the American Republic. Library of Congress, 1st Street and Independence Avenue, SE, Washington DC.  Temporary exhibition, June 4 - August 29, 1998. National tour planned for 1999-2000. 5,500 sq. ft.
James H. Huston, Chief, Manuscript Division, curator.
Film and concert series.

RELIGION and the Founding of the American Republic, by James H. Huston. (Washington DC: Library of Congress, 1998. xv, 136 pp. Paper, $21.95, IBSN 0-8444-0948-0.)

Internet: 212 images from exhibition with explanatory notes available at http://lcweb.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/

This exhibit declares boldly that America is a nation conceived "under God" and examines the potency of the real or mythical "wall of separation" between church and state suggested by Thomas Jefferson. Many of the debates engaged in by early churchmen and politicians are presented in seven sections: America as Refuge: The Seventeenth Century; Religion in Eighteenth-Century America; Religion and the American Revolution; Religion and the Congress of the Confederation; Religion and the State Governments; Religion and the Federal Government; and Republican Religion. Mention of debates concerning the problem of slavery is curiously absent. Indeed, the word "slavery" appears only in reference to a young "African poetess" emancipated in order to pursue a literary career. What artful dodging! The possible political implications of this characterization are interesting. Native Americans and Africans contributed to early development of religious formations in this Republic and such public history events should represent those contributions. Colonial Williamsburg, for example, acknowledged their presence and contributions within its’ 1998 interpretive programming on the theme Freeing Religion. Yet, the Library of Congress' exhibit seems to have found the notion that either group had any authentic religious heritage to contribute too radical, and the reality of slavery too controversial to be addressed.

Access to the exhibit area was through the main reading room of the library’s Jefferson Building with it’s high domed ceiling, marble pillars and statuary, stained glass windows, and gold ornamentation. Visitors were drawn into the exhibit as if into a pilgrimage to a high and holy place. During my various visits, they reacted, for the most part, in reverent boredom to the highly textual display showcasing the Library’s holdings. The dozen or so actual "things" exhibited were among the most interesting items. The material culture items included a 1661 silver communion set from Jamestown, a portable field pulpit of the sort used by itinerant preachers during the Great Awakening, and a metal carrying case used by Anglican priests in the 1770s to protect license and ordination papers. Interestingly, the carrying case was the same type a free black might have used to protect his or her freedom papers during the same period.

Curator James Huston’s treatment of the African-American religious experience was disappointing, both in terms of content and placement within the exhibit. The "African poetess" was acknowledged only for her participation at the funeral of George Whitefield. Similarly, Richard Allen and others associated with founding African-American Protestant denominations were depicted adjacent to information about enthusiastic camp meetings and revivals featuring screaming, jumping, and animal noises. A watercolor called "Negro Methodists Holding a Meeting in a Philadelphia Alley" was displayed side by side with an engraving of "Lorenzo Dow and the Jerking Exercise." Huston also included a receipt, signed by Absalom Jones, acknowledging financial assistance provided by congress in 1801. These kinds of choices implicitly support the notion that African-American religious expression was born of either mindless enthusiasm or political pretensions.

Huston provided no new or novel interpretations of religion and the founding of the American republic that might contribute to the field of African-American religious history. Indeed, he returned to the classic narrative wherein the majority of European settlers left their homes due to religious oppression and arrived dedicated to the proposition that religious freedom should here prevail. Not much is missed by exploring the exhibit via the internet. In fact, considering the amount of reading one must do to take in the "view", an internet tour is recommended.

Delmarshae Sledge Tinsley, University of Pittsburgh

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