Johnson, Paul E. A Shopkeepers Millennium and Revivals in Rochester, New York, 1815-1837: Hill and Wang, 1978. (revised 2004)

Book Reviewed By Alina Mattison

Paul E. Johnson is the author of A Shopkeepers Millennium. Johnson is currently a professor at the University of South Carolina and has devoted his time to history and writing. This book was first published in 1978 by Hill and Wang and since has been revised in 2004. Hill and Wang publish books dealing with history and politics. This tells the readers it is supposed to be read primarily by historians and students. In Johnson's revised book from 2004,the author included new a preface. Johnson has been criticized a great deal about his book because there is little mention of women. During the era he writes about, the women had a great deal in the role of the church yet he does not recognize what women did in any way. The preface in the revised version allows Johnson to talk about this issue. He states even though he was highly criticized, he would not change what he wrote about. He says might add a little bit more information but he would to keep the basic information he already had the same if he were to re-write the book. I think it is interesting he says this because of how much criticism he got about the book.

In Johnson's book, the main point is that politics and religion have roles within each other. The first part of the book focuses on Rochester, New York, from its beginning stages as a town. He goes into depth about how Rochester was set up and what kind of people moved to the city. During this time, Rochester was the largest and fastest growing city in the United States. Even though in the beginning of the book he explained how it was a small town he explains how it quickly grew and became more populated. He explains how the wealthy people of Rochester were mostly Presbyterian. The wealthy people of Rochester, basically controlled and directed the economy. This was important because if the wealthier majority was controlling the working class then they were theoretically controlling the city. This later has a lot to do with how Johnson is able to connect religion to politics.

The first part of the book, seems to lead directly to a later discussion of Charles A. Finney. Finney's influence is the one of the main points to the book. Johnson has a lot of details about Rochester and the people in Rochester which better allows him to explain his connections in politics and religion having to do with Finney. Johnson writes the first part of his book to support the second part which deals with how religion and politics came in to play with each other and the people of the town.

Charles Finny was an important man in Rochester. Johnson uses the second part of his book to talk about Finney and how Finney used politics and religion together. Finney was once a lawyer and then decided to give up law and go and preach every nightof the week and three times every Sunday. Finney was a man in the upper class and among the more wealthy. Since he was a lawyer, the people he was friends with were also mostly upper class and more toward the wealthy side. Finney was Presbyterian and was very devoted to the church. Because of his relation to the church, he influenced the upper class of Rochester to mimic what he thought. Johnson argues because the upper class was Presbyterian and they controlled the working class, the majority of Rochester had to be Presbyterian because if they were not, then the upper class would not hire people who were not Presbyterians. The church was directly related to the politics going on at this time in Rochester.

The Whigs, the more conservative party, who were mostly Presbyterian, were the stronger political party during this time. The other political party during the time were the democrats. They were more liberal then the Whigs. An example Johnson uses is how the democrats did not believe drinking alcohol should be outlawed whereas the Whigs were completely against alcohol altogether. Because the economy was run by the upper class, who were Presbyterian, the working class was also Presbyterian. When it came to voting, the political power who was ahead of the other was the Whigs because they were full of upper class Presbyterians and were supported by the majority of the city. Johnson argues in his book that religion and politics are directly related to one another. He does a good job at organizing his thoughts to support his theory and main point of the book.

I believe Johnson did a good job supporting his ideas and main point of the book. The way he organized and utilized his information was useful and helpful. The place where I thought he fell short on in his book was about women. He was very criticized by people about this point and I definitely agree with the critics. Women, if anything, had more impact on the church then men did at the time. Many times, women were more active in the church then the men and did more to benefit the church. Because of this, I do not believe Johnson is giving the full picture of what was going on in Rochester at the time.

I am not a huge fan of scholarly books. I have a hard time keeping focused and staying interested in the book. For me this scholarly book was better then most I have read. There were a few times where I thought the book was a little bit redundant but overall it was not too bad. There were some parts of the book I found to be dull but other part I thought were interesting, even though Johnson failed to recognize the role women had at this time, he supported his main point and put forth an abundance of information about Rochester and what was going on in the city during this era.

Altogether I liked the book and thought it had some very interesting information in it.