ShmoopTube

00:00

We speak student!

00:03

We tend to remember the 20s as a time of gin guzzling crazy dancing

00:08

[man drinks alcohol from bottle and falls over] nausea-inducing partying excess but there were plenty of Americans who went

00:13

the opposite direction instead of listening to hot jazz in speakeasies

00:17

they listened to the fiery sermons of fundamentalist preachers either way

00:23

[preacher waves arms] folks got rowdy but the religious types did it in the name of God

00:27

fundamentalism was a return to the basics of Christianity one could even

00:31

say that fundamentalism was a return to the fundamentals of Christianity but

00:36

maybe yeah that would sound a little redundant or it would definitely sound

00:39

redundant yeah see we did there for the most part this revival of Christian

00:43

[cow holds up cross] fundamentalism was a rural thing that could happen in the farms it actually

00:47

started in the 1910s as a reaction to changing America kind of like every

00:52

other social movement.. ever in this case the new immigration as it was

00:57

[two men jump off ship] called was bringing millions of new types of people into the country

01:00

Catholics, Jews and more were all coming to American shores in waves and this kind

01:06

of freaked out America's traditional wasps that's wasp meaning white anglo-saxon

01:11

[man swats wasp with religion sign] protestant not the stinging insect another thing freaking out American waspy

01:16

rural protestants was all that science talk going on evolution forget

01:22

about it traditional rural American Protestants thought that science was

01:26

writing God out of the creation story and they were not cool with it to top it all

01:30

[preacher in empty church] off church attendance was falling to traditional wasps this was the writing

01:35

on the wall they were certain that God would punish America for the direction

01:39

it was going in it was time to bring the nation back in line with scripture it

01:44

was time to restore the image of America as a Christian nation and so the 1920s

01:49

saw a religious revival this was nothing new in American history revivals were a

01:53

[piles of cash burn] recurring event like financial panics and halley's comet the difference this

01:58

time was that instead of meeting in the fields and having sermons described in

02:02

newspaper articles the 20s fundamentalism got modern now millions

02:07

of Americans could hear the fiery gospel over the radio waves and even in some

02:11

short movies fundamentalist preachers were energetic to say the least they

02:15

waved their arms wildly shouted themselves hoarse pounded the pulpit and

02:19

tore their hair out in an attempt to wake up Americans in the need for

02:23

[sweat runs down preacher's face] old-time religion these exuberant tactics they not only conveyed a message

02:27

that spoke to many Americans they burned a lot of calories while doing it

02:31

preacherobics you should get it its like from Jane Fonda

Full Transcript