17. The emergence of the Social Gospel during the Gilded Age
The Civil War was preceded and followed in the United States by a period of religious revival known as the Third Great Awakening. In turn, the largely Protestant Awakening spawned the Social Gospel, which directed attention to the problems of the slums in large cities by applying what its proponents called “Christian ethics” to what they believed were the true causes of the squalid living conditions; alcohol, crime, inadequate and unequal distribution of wealth, poor schools, and so on. Preachers of the Social Gospel aligned themselves with the temperance movement, the suffragist movement, and other groups bent on social reform, including the socialists and anarchists.
The YMCA and YWCA grew significantly in size and influence during the Gilded Age, particularly in the cities and towns across the United States, where it strove to create alternatives to the recreation offered by taverns and brothels. During the Gilded Age the game of basketball was invented at a YMCA training center in Springfield, Massachusetts. Another New England YMCA saw the invention of the game of volleyball, originally known as Mintonette. The YMCA was an example of the Social Gospel which was based on the principle of muscular Christianity, which gained support during the Gilded Age, often from the poor as an attack against the excesses of the wealthy. Nonetheless many wealthy industrialists and financiers also supported the Social Gospel as a form of 19th century faith based initiative.