This panel proposal continues the dialogue sparked by recent panels at the Business History Conference on the intersection between religion and business. Specifically, this panel asks the primary question, “How/why did Christianity sanctify the United States’ nineteenth century marketplace?” In answering this question, panelists will explore themes such as consumerism, commodification, mythmaking, and the morality of the market. The answers these three papers offer are surprising and wide-ranging, but demonstrate that whether it was the circus, literature, or firearms, businesses used Christianity to market products while cultivating affinity among consumers for their marketplace activities. For example, Nicole Kirk’s paper examines how circuses made a conscious decision in the late nineteenth century to target Christian consumers, and so remade their reputation for sinful entertainment into something that was safe for the whole family. James Dupey similarly engages with the theme of virtuous consumerism, as he recenters business within the story of Restoration Movement preacher Alexander Campbell, who encouraged his laity to purchase Christian products (such as those his print shop produced) as sanctified consumers. This is helpful corrective to a story that normally focusses on theology, revivals, and denominational arguments. Finally, Joseph Slaughter asks us to reflect on the ways that Elizabeth Colt sanctified the person and business of her husband Samuel Colt after his passing in 1862. He demonstrates that a helpful place to start is the Church of the Good Shepherd that Elizabeth had constructed in 1866 to memorialize her husband and his pioneering work in the U. S. gun industry. In so doing, Elizabeth laid the foundation for a sacred gun culture in twentieth century America.
Historians such as Bethany Moreton, Darren Dochuk, and Daniel Vaca have helped us understand how Christianity helped sacralize capitalism in the twentieth century, and the papers of this panel deepen that story by suggesting this was a project already underway in the nineteenth century. These papers carry the legacy of the new history of capitalism forward by illuminating how religiously-conditioned decisions shaped business culture and consumer behavior, remaking the reputations of circuses, gun makers, and revivalists in the nineteenth century.