Most Famous Man in America: Biography of Henry Ward Beecher by Debby Applegate
	List Price:   $16.95 Unit Price:   $13.56 You Save:   $3.39 (20%) ISBN-10:   0385513976 ISBN-13:   9780385513975 Publisher:   Random House [MD]; Three Leaves Edition:   illustrated Category:   Young Adults Pub. Date:   April 2007 Pages:   527 Format:   Paperback
Subjects
BEECHER, HENRY WARD, 1813-1887 CLERGY_BIOGRAPHY UNITED STATES_SOCIAL CONDITIONS_1865-1945
Description/Notes
Chapter 1 “Damned If You Do, and Damned If You Don’t” One evening in late December, sometime around 1820, Henry Ward Beecher trudged through the snow, returning home from running an errand for his parents. Exactly how old he was he couldn’t say, but he was still a chubby little boy, with wide gray eyes set above apple red cheeks. As he passed up the long town common in the center of the village, he was surprised to see Litchfield’s little brown Episcopalian church lit up like a beacon in the early darkness. Henry was far too young to follow the fine theological distinctions his father used to separate the good Protestants from the bad Protestants, but of this he was sure: The Episcopalians were on the bad side. He needed no other proof than the fact that they didn’t attend the white-steepled church where his father, the Reverend Lyman Beecher, preached every Sunday. In truth, God and Lyman Beecher were so intertwined in the little boy’s mind that he did not quite grasp that Episcopalianism was a rival religion, he later recalled, “for I supposed there was no other religion except that which my father looked after.” Henry was irresistibly drawn to the open door of the church, and as he peered in he was shocked to find candles blazing at every window; boughs of spruce, pine, and arborvitae twined around the pews; and a choir singing blissfully about the birth of Christ. He had never seen such a spectacle, certainly not in his father’s austere meetinghouse, and he could not imagine what it meant. Although he did not know it then, this dazzling vision would be Henry’s only taste of Christmas as a child. Christmas “was not known in the house of my father, for he was a Puritan of the Puritans,” Henry said years later. “I never heard of Santa Claus when I was a boy. I never hung up a stocking. I feel bad about it to this day.”(1) When Henry was a boy, his faith in his father was so deeply ingrained that it never occurred to him to ask why they did not celebrate Christmas. If he had, Lyman’s answer would have been unequivocal. As an orthodox Calvinist, Lyman Beecher interpreted the Bible literally, as solid fact, and there was nothing in the Scriptures to suggest that Christ was born on December 25. And even if there were, the day would be an occasion for solemn prayer, not sensual frivolity. Why, the Beechers didn’t even celebrate their own birthdays. If the Episcopalians chose to delude themselves about Christ’s birth that was one thing, as far as Lyman was concerned, but this business of filling the church with decadent appeals to the senses–with music, gaudy decorations, and gifts–was a sneaky attempt to lure the good Christians of Connecticut from the true faith of the Puritan fathers. Lyman had no patience for newfangled notions of religious tolerance or the separation of church and state. Episcopalians, Unitarians, Catho-lics–Lyman lumped them together with atheists, drunkards, thieves, and Jeffersonian Democrats, declaring each one a force of deviltry to be fought tooth and nail. Despite his harsh dogma, Henry’s father was not a cruel man. Those who knew the famous Reverend Beecher only by rumor or from reading his sensational fire-and-brimstone sermons were often surprised to fi nd that in person he was warm and witty, fiercely intelligent, and deeply compassionate. When he invoked the terrors of the devil and the terrible judgment of God’s law, it was not out of perversity but because he was truly heartbroken that, as he saw it, so many “immortal souls are sleeping on the brink of hell.”(2) Lyman’s devotion to God was riva No one predicted success for Henry Ward Beecher at his birth in 1813. The blithe, boisterous son of the last great Puritan minister, he seemed destined to be overshadowed by his brilliant siblings—especially his sister, Harriet Beecher Stowe, who penned the century’s bestselling bookUncle Tom’s Cabin. But when pushed into the ministry, the charismatic Beecher found international fame by shedding his father’s Old Testament–style fire-and-brimstone theology and instead preaching a New Testament–based gospel of unconditional love and healing, becoming one of the founding fathers of modern American Christianity. By the 1850s, his spectacular sermons at Plymouth Church in Brooklyn Heights had made him New York’s number one tourist attraction, so wildly popular that the ferries from Manhattan to Brooklyn were dubbed “Beecher Boats.” Beecher inserted himself into nearly every important drama of the era—among them the antislavery and women’s suffrage movements, the rise of the entertainment industry and tabloid press, and controversies ranging from Darwinian evolution to presidential politics. He was notorious for his irreverent humor and melodramatic gestures, such as auctioning slaves to freedom in his pulpit and shipping rifles—nicknamed “Beecher’s Bibles”—to the antislavery resistance fighters in Kansas. Thinkers such as Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, and Twain befriended—and sometimes parodied—him. And then it all fell apart. In 1872 Beecher was accused by feminist firebrand Victoria Woodhull of adultery with one of his most pious parishioners. Suddenly the “Gospel of Love” seemed to rationalize a life of lust. The cuckolded husband brought charges of “criminal conversation” in a salacious trial that became the most widely covered event of the century, garnering more newspaper headlines than the entire Civil War. Beecher survived, but his reputation and his causes—from women’s rights to progressive evangelicalism—suffered devastating setbacks that echo to this day. Featuring the page-turning suspense of a novel and dramatic new historical evidence, Debby Applegate has written the definitive biography of this captivating, mercurial, and sometimes infuriating figure. In our own time, when religion and politics are again colliding and adultery in high places still commands headlines, Beecher’s story sheds new light on the culture and conflicts of contemporary America. Praise forThe Most Famous Man in America “A wonderful portrait of a charismatic preacher with a deeply flawed private life, this biography vividly conveys the color and contradictions of nineteenth-century America. With a sure grasp of history, penetrating insights into religion, and many marvelous turns of phrase, Applegate brings to life a time that uncannily prefigures our own.” —William Taubman, author ofKhrushchev “At last, Henry Beecher receives the comprehensive treatment he is due, in this perceptive, engaging, and balanced study.” —James MacGregor Burns “Debby Applegate brings to life nineteenth-century America’s most influential preacher, who emerges in this full-blooded portrait as a fascinating tangle of all-too-human traits. Drawing off an impressive body of research, the author expertly weaves together biography and history in a riveting narrative that reads like a page-turning novel.” —David S. Reynolds, author ofJohn Brown, AbolitionistandWalt Whitman’s America. “Thoroughly researched, passionately written, and richly detailed, this book is the biography of America’s greatest nineteenth-century preacher . . . must reading for serious nonfiction readers of American religion, politics and culture in Victorian America.” —Harry S. Stout, Jonathan Edwards Professor of American Religious History, Yale University “A lively narrative of nineteenth-century religion, power, passion, and politics, as well as a perceptive study of the elusive preacher who rode them to the top.” —Joan D. Hedrick, Pulitzer Prize–winning author ofHarriet Beecher Stowe “Henry Ward Beecher was a phenomenon: the scion of an amazing family, the most renowned American preacher of his day, an anti-slavery stalwart—and the main protagonist in one of the most sensational sex scandals of the Victorian era. If you thought that the personalities and machinations surrounding the Clinton impeachment scandal were interesting, you will find the Beecher expos? riveting. More important, Debby Applegate has vividly brought Beecher and his entire era to life, in all of their piety, idealism, pomposity, and pride.” —Sean Wilentz, author ofThe Rise of American Democracy Applegate brings the fascinating, flawed figure of Henry Ward Beecher to deserved new life and places him at the center of the key dramas of the American 19th century--including the advent of the pulp novel and tabloid press.