Second Great Awakening

===Burned-over district===
{{Main|Burned-over district}}
Beginning in the 1820s, [[Western New York]] State experienced a series of popular religious revivals that would later earn this region the nickname "the [[burned-over district]]," which implied the area was set ablaze with spiritual fervor. This term, however, was not used by contemporaries in the first half of the nineteenth century, as it originates from [[Charles Grandison Finney]]'s ''Autobiography of Charles G Finney'' (1876), in which he writes, "I found that region of country what, in the western phrase, would be called, a 'burnt district.' There had been, a few years previously, a wild excitement passing through that region, which they called a revival of religion, but which turned out to be spurious."<ref>Whitney R. Cross, ''The Burned-over District: The Social and Intellectual History of Enthusiastic Religion in Western New, 1800–1850'' (1951)</ref><ref>Judith Wellman, ''Grassroots Reform in the Burned-over District of Upstate New York: Religion, Abolitionism, and Democracy'' (2000) [https://www.amazon.com/Grassroots-Reform-Burned-over-District-Upstate/dp/0815337922/ excerpt and text search]</ref><ref>{{cite book|author1=Geordan Hammond|author2=William Gibson|title=Wesley and Methodist Studies|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jxglaxiqXsoC&pg=PA32|date=March 1, 2012|publisher=Clements|page=32|isbn=9781926798134}}</ref> During this period, a number of [[Nonconformist (Protestantism)|nonconformist]], [[folk religion]], and [[Evangelicalism|evangelical]] sects flourished in the region.

The extent to which religious fervor actually affected the region was reassessed in last quarter of the twentieth century. Linda K. Pritchard used statistical data to show that compared to the rest of New York State, the [[Ohio River|Ohio River Valley]] in the lower Midwest, and the country as a whole, the religiosity of the Burned-over District was typical rather than exceptional.<ref>{{cite journal |first=Linda K. |last=Pritchard |title=The burned-over district reconsidered: A portent of evolving religious pluralism in the United States |journal=Social Science History |year=1984 |volume=8 |issue=3 |pages=243–265 |jstor=1170853 |doi=10.2307/1170853}}</ref> More recent works, however, have argued that these revivals in Western New York had a unique and lasting impact upon the religious and social life of the entire nation.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Johnson |first1=Paul |title=A shopkeeper's millennium: Society and revivals in Rochester, New York, 1815-1837 |date=2004 |publisher=Hill and Wang |isbn=9780809016358 |edition=1st rev. |location=New York}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Kruczek-Aaron |first1=Hadley |title=Everyday religion: An archaeology of protestant belief and practice in the nineteenth century |date=2015 |publisher=University Press of Florida |isbn=9780813055503 |location=Gainesville}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Ferriby |first1=Peter Gavin |title=History of American Christian Movements: Introduction |url=https://library.sacredheart.edu/american_christianity |website=Sacred Heart University Library |publisher=Sacred Heart University Library |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201001193810/https://library.sacredheart.edu/american_christianity |access-date=9 June 2021|archive-date=2020-10-01 }}</ref>