Burned-over district: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

The Burned-Over District was a name given by evangelist Charles Grandison Finney to an area in western New York State in the United States of America. He called it so because the area was subjected to continual religious revivalism, especially after attracting settlers in the period between the construction of the Erie Canal and the rise of the railroads.

The area still had a frontier quality during the early canal boom, making professional and established clergy scarce, lending the piety of the area many of the self-taught qualities that proved susceptible to folk religion. As such the area spawned a number of innovative religious movements, all founded by lay people, during the early 19th century. These include:

• Mormonism and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Joseph Smith, Jr. lived in the area and claimed to have been led by the angel Moroni to golden plates from which he translated the Book of Mormon near Palmyra, New York.

• The Millerites. William Miller was a farmer born in rural Vermont who moved to the area and found many converts there to his theory of an imminent Second Coming. His successor, Ellen G. White, went on to found the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

• The Fox sisters of Hydesville, New York conducted the first "table-rapping" séances in the area, leading to the American movement of Spiritualism that taught communication with the dead.

• The Shakers were also highly active in the area, and had several of their communal farms there.

• Finney himself preached at many revivals in the area, and was an early precursor of Pentecostalism in his preaching style that emphasized a living, practical faith marked by the Holy Spirit over formal theology.

In addition to religious activity, the Burned-Over District was famous for social radicalism. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the early feminist, came from Seneca Falls, New York, and conducted the Seneca Falls Convention devoted to women's suffrage there.