This book introduces readers to the Presbyterian movement in the United States as told by those who lived through and contributed to its history. William Yoo has drawn together essential documents from the colonial period to the present that illustrate and illumine U.S. Presbyterianism across diversities of race, ethnicity, geography, gender, age, and theological position. Readers will follow the church's journey from modest origins as a Scots-Irish immigrant church to prominence on the national stage, from early revivals and tent meetings to large-scale theological debates, from defense of slavery and racial intolerance to the pursuit of social justice and racial reconciliation, and from retreat into theologically narrow enclaves to active engagement with national and international politics and culture. Yoo weaves together a coherent and compelling narrative using the voices of those who sought a faithfully Presbyterian witness to the gospel. Arranged both chronologically and thematically with historical maps and photos, this book provides a lively and accessible vista into the making and shaping of Presbyterianism in the United States.

Following the American Revolution, it was a cliche that the new republic's future depended on widespread, informed citizenship. However, instead of immediately creating the common schools--accessible, elementary education--that seemed necessary to create such a citizenry, the Federalists in power founded one of the most ubiquitous but forgotten institutions of early American life: academies, privately run but state-chartered secondary schools that offered European-style education primarily for elites. By 1800, academies had become the most widely incorporated institutions besides churches and transportation projects in nearly every state. In this book, Mark Boonshoft shows how many Americans saw the academy as a caricature of aristocratic European education and how their political reaction against the academy led to a first era of school reform in the United States, helping transform education from a tool of elite privilege into a key component of self-government. And yet the very anti-aristocratic critique that propelled democratic education was conspicuously silent on the persistence of racial and gender inequality in public schooling. By tracing the history of academies in the revolutionary era, Boonshoft offers a new understanding of political power and the origins of public education and segregation in the United States.

This account of the settlement of one segment of the North Carolina frontier -- the land between the Yadkin and Catawba rivers -- examines the process by which the piedmont South was populated. Through its ingenious use of hundreds of sources and documents, Robert Ramsey traces the movement of the original settlers and their families from the time they stepped onto American shores to their final settlement in the northwest Carolina territory. He considers the economic, religious, social, and geographical influences that led the settlers to Rowan County and describes how this frontier community was organized and supervised.