Hallelujah Lads and Lasses

Remaking the Salvation Army in America, 1880-1930

By Lillian Taiz

264 pp., 6.125 x 9.25, 15 photos, 8 tables, appends., notes, index

  • Paperback ISBN: 978-0-8078-4935-4
    Published: June 2001
  • E-book PDF ISBN: 979-8-8908-7251-7
    Published: November 2002
  • E-book EPUB ISBN: 978-0-8078-7566-7
    Published: November 2002

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So strongly associated is the Salvation Army with its modern mission of service that its colorful history as a religious movement is often overlooked. In telling the story of the organization in America, Lillian Taiz traces its evolution from a working-class, evangelical religion to a movement that emphasized service as the path to salvation.

When the Salvation Army crossed the Atlantic from Britain in 1879, it immediately began to adapt its religious culture to its new American setting. The group found its constituency among young, working-class men and women who were attracted to its intensely experiential religious culture, which combined a frontier-camp-meeting style with working-class forms of popular culture modeled on the saloon and theater. In the hands of these new recruits, the Salvation Army developed a remarkably democratic internal culture. By the turn of the century, though, as the Army increasingly attempted to attract souls by addressing the physical needs of the masses, the group began to turn away from boisterous religious expression toward a more "refined" religious culture and a more centrally controlled bureaucratic structure.

Placing her focus on the membership of the Salvation Army and its transformation as an organization within the broader context of literature on class, labor, and women's history, Taiz sheds new light on the character of American working-class culture and religion in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

About the Author

Lillian Taiz is associate professor of history at California State University, Los Angeles.
For more information about Lillian Taiz, visit the Author Page.

Reviews

"This engaging, thoroughly documented volume tells the story of a religious movement that had to deal with a distant but demanding headquarters, contentious local troops and opposition from the public and the press. . . . Taiz's research brings to life conflicts within the group, some of which are echoed today."--Los Angeles Times

"[This] book is distinguished from many studies by its attention to the ordinary men and women, the 'hallelujah lads and lasses' of the title, who devoted their lives to the army. . . . Taiz has crafted a compelling story about evangelism and urban relief in America, and she tells it in remarkably crisp prose. Armchair Army-ites and scholars alike will enjoy this book."--Publishers Weekly

"This study of the Salvation Army, by an individual with no ties to the movement, helps to expand the fairly limited understanding of the group among contemporary historians."--Choice

"An excellent addition to the shelf of new books on neglected nineteenth and early twentieth-century religious movements."--American Historical Review

"A clear and comprehensive study of the historical development of the Salvation Army in its formative years in the United States. . . . An excellent portrait of the Salvation Army's relationship to popular culture. . . A well-researched and eminently readable discussion of an important and neglected topic in American religious and social service history."--Journal of American History

"A long-overdue and highly readable study of one of the country's most significant, yet often overlooked, religious and cultural phenomena."--Maryland Historical Magazine