Photoessay #1967 - Moody and Sankey

I forget sometimes the timeline of my research. For example, I didn't even know about the devotional exercise controversy of 1878 before I went to New Haven and saw the clippings. Soon after, I read an interview with Maier Zunder and he said he wouldn't mind the singing of hymns except for those of Moody and Sankey.

I thought who? Moody and Sankey? Who are they?

Now I know. Dwight Moody (preaching) and David Sankey (singing) toured around the country as evangelical revivalists. Tremendously popular in the 1870s, they drew huge crowds around the country and the UK, preaching a born again devotion to Christianity.

In 1878, they announced they wanted to come to New Haven. An organizing committee of businessmen and ministers decided there was no building large enough so they decided to fund and build a huge building over a period of six weeks. The Tabernacle, as it was called, seated 6000 people, had a special rail spur for those traveling from other cities, was near the intersection of Dwight and Whalley Streets just a few blocks north of Yale and the Nine Squares.

Moody and Sankey preached during all of April into early May, three sessions/day. Between two and six thousand people attended every single session. They had a huge influence on Yale Divinity and the development of the YMCA. Pretty impressive when you realize that the population of New Haven at that time was only about 65K

This morning, I was at the University of Washington, Bothell campus reading March and April of 1878 New Haven Journal and Courier. Unlike January and February, I didn't find much writing about the Bible in the Schools

But I saw a LOT about Moody and Sankey's visit. Most days, the entire local section of the Journal and Courier (which was quite a comprehensive daily) was completely devoted to the Moody and Sankey crusade including detailed reporting on all of the sessions with excerpts from the preaching.

Check out the drawing of the 'tabernacle'. A huge deal in New Haven. So, if you figure that many of the citizens attended these charismatic sessions, is it any wonder that a few months later, the populace enthusiastically endorsed a ticket for election to the Board of Education to "put the Bible back in the schools". Moody and Sankey were just warming everybody up.