The Evolution of the Country Community: A Study in Religious SociologyWilson, Warren H. (Warren Hugh)
Religion
The Evolution of the Country Community: A Study in Religious Sociology
Wilson, Warren H. (Warren Hugh)
Christian sociology; Country life
There have been four economic types in American agriculture. These have
succeeded one another as the rural economy has gone through successive
transformations. They have been the pioneer, the land farmer, the
exploiter and the husbandman. Prof. J. B. Ross of Lafayette, Ind., has
clearly stated[1] the periods by which these types are separated from
one another. It remains for us to consider the communities and the
churches which have taken form in accordance with these successive
types.
Prof. Ross has spoken only of the Middle West. With a slight
modification, the same might be said of the Eastern States, because the
rural economy of the Middle West is inherited from the East. His
statement made of this succession of economic types should be quoted in
full:
"The agrarian occupation of the Middle West divides itself into three
periods. The first, which extends from the beginnings of immigration to
about the year 1835, is of significance chiefly because of the type of
immigrants who preempted the soil and the nature of their occupancy. The
second period, extending from 1835 to 1890, had as its chief objective
the enrichment of the group life. It was the period in which large
houses and commodious barns were erected, and in which the church and
the school were the centers of social activity. The third period, which
began about the year 1890, and which is not yet complete, is marked by a
transition from the era of resident proprietors of the land to that of
non-resident proprietors, and by the fact that the chief attention of
the land owners is paid to the improvement of the soil by fertilization
and drainage and to the increasing of facilities for communication and
for the marketing of farm products."
Each of these types created by the habits of the people in getting their
living, had its own kind of a community, so that we have had pioneer,
land farmer, exploiter and husbandman communities. Indeed all these
types are now found contemporaneous with one another. We have also had
successive churches built by the pioneer, by the land farmer, by the
exploiter and by the husbandman. The present state of the country church
and community is explained best by saying that it is an effect of
transition from the pioneer and the land farmer types of church and
community to the exploiter and husbandman types.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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