The Positive Thinkers: Popular Religious Psychology from Mary Baker Eddy to Norman Vincent Peale

The Positive Thinkers: Popular Religious Psychology from Mary Baker Eddy to Norman Vincent Peale (1988 [1965])
By Donald Meyer

Synopsis: This book is an examination of popular psychology and its intersection with health, wealth, and peace of mind. It is divided into three parts: Part One: Theology as Psychology (nineteenth-century life brings increased fragmentation/compartmentalization; rise of nervousness brought on by modern life; Mary Baker Eddy's mind cure Christian Science of the 1880s as feminine way of passively making best of situation via attempt to "think the thoughts of God;" ideal was for one whole mind, a total coherence of environment, a giving up of one's self); Part Two: Peace in the System: Sociology as Psychology (rise of business culture and rise of scientific efficiency and rational order/mechanization, Taylorism, rise of managerial elite and organizational psychology; desire for happy and smoothly-running everything); Part Three: Peace in Peace: Psychology as Psychology (liberal Protestantism's loss of touch with sensuality/art; obsession with work ethic; rise of Norman Vincent Peale and mass services exalting "positive thinking"). Although the overall argument is a bit unclear, one interesting point I got out of it is that self-help culture and positive thinking are logical extensions of Protestantism's rejection of all things hierarchical (as embodied by their rejection of religious authority); the only real power lies within the individual. This might pave way for religious Right.

Interesting Specifics:

1881 = George Beard's American Nervousness

The rise of clean houses as a value represented the need for something to do (49).

"Mind cure rejected personality" (114). Personality represented fragmentation and lack of unity with the big picture.

Interacts With:

Again, one of the main points is that the modern era caused increased compartmentalization/fragmentation. Was there ever a moment in the 19th century in which people said, Fuck this holism, let's compartmentalize things!?
Also interacts with anything that focuses on the primacy of the individual. I can honestly also seem some connection to Storming Heaven with it's focus on the enlightening of the individual; really falls in line with transcendentalists as well. Hmm, if U.S. had remained homogeneous for longer, I wonder if there would have been enough momentum to create a strong community-based culture that could have withstood the individualistic competition of capitalism.. Because it really was with the influx of different kinds of people that the colonists were forced to use pluralism as their new ideal (not that pluralism is bad, but if pluralism - in the guise of acceptance of differences - had come along a little later, when a more stable community-based society had taken root, I wonder if we would be such an individual-focused society. Hmm.)
Warning: I skimmed this book pretty quickly.

Urban Masses and Moral Order in America, 1820-1920

Urban Masses and Moral Order in America, 1820-1920 (1992 [1978])
By Paul Boyer

Synopsis: This book is "a fresh synthesis of familiar material" that examines America's moral response to the city, from 1820-1920, and the various reform measure taken to deal with it. The book is divided into four parts: 1) The Jacksonian Era, 2) The Mid-Century Decades: Years of Frustration and Innovation, 3) The Gilded Age: Urban Moral Control in a Turbulent Time, 4) The Progressives and the City: Common Concerns, Divergent Strategies. Argues that prior to 1920 (mostly pre-1860), many of the reform efforts really focused on restoring a sort of village life/familiar surveillance in a society which no longer followed that model. Reform efforts also sought "moral uplift" through tracts (Lyman Beecher was especially involved). The switch from a rural to urban society freaked people out and led them to fear a loss of control. Into the Guilded Age, more coercive strategies took hold (such as Teddy Roosevelt's "we have to fight the poor to save them" strategy - wasn't he post-Gilded Age though?) vs. positive environmentalist strategies (such as the City Beautiful Movement, park movement, playground movement, etc). By the 1920s, however, the view of the city had changed, and people now saw it as a den of conformity.

Interesting Specifics:

Attempts at increased surveillance included the publishing of personal details, whose aim was "to introduce a public dimension into even the most intimate private realm; to reassert society's right to oversee every facet of personal behavior" (19). [Interesting, as this is exactly what's going on now with MySpace, etc, but in an intentional, hey look at me and my personal details! way. Would this idea still even work? Oh, I guess it still exists with "To Catch a Predator"]

Many of the religious-based reform movements were designed to reach the masses and provide them with a sense of order. Thus, the Jacksonian era became somewhat obsessed with order and discipline as a counter to the increased chaos; "this early urban moral-reform effort, then, simply underscored the erosion of an organic sense of community in a period of urban growth" (56).

YMCA movement started in England in 1841, and was brought to the U.S. in 1851.

1910 = Mann Act passed - made is a federal offense of transport a woman across state lines for "immoral purposes" (191).

The 1890s saw a massive rise of anti-prostitution and anti-liquor sentiment.

1896 = Raines Law, and the rise of Raines Law hotels.

Park movement, playground movement, etc, were all part of the "positive-environmentalist" movement, which sought to improve living conditions of the poor so as to influence their moral and social values (234).

Interacts With:

Rothman (Discovery of the Asylum, in this increased push for order and hermetic, old-time community as a solution to increased chaos and change of urbanization)
Hmm, I wrote in my notes that this book might also be about the (implicit) homogenizing effects of mass culture, even though it doesn't explicitly state that.