American Preacher: The Life and Times of the Eccentric Lorenzo Dow with Seth A. Perry

Lorenzo Dow (1777-1834) was the most famous preacher in America during the early nineteenth century. An itinerant known as “Crazy Dow,” he spent three decades roaming the United States and Britain, preaching, publishing, provoking audiences, and building one of the first truly national celebrity followings in American history. He was a character who got people’s attention, for better or for worse. In an era before electronic media, the face and the voice of “Crazy Dow” were recognizable from Natchez to Belfast, and his countless broadsides, pamphlets, and books spread his influence even farther. Dow was one of the most important creators of the brand of emotional, populist Protestantism that now saturates American politics and culture. His career brings into relief some things about that brand: its self-absorption; its aggressive effrontery, its pushiness; its capacity to create and exploit a market for its wares. As a celebrity preacher who transcended denominational lines, this odd man is a crucial link in a chain that connects George Whitefield in the eighteenth century to Billy Sunday, Aimee Semple McPherson, and Billy Graham in the twentieth. Dow’s entanglements with Southern slavery – which he opposed while declining to promote abolitionism – make his story crucial to an understanding of American religious history writ large. His mode of populist appeal vibrates through subsequent eras of American religion, politics, and popular culture, including our own. This talk examines how Dow built his fame and asks what his remarkable career can teach us about religion, celebrity, and the origins of a very American style of public influence that continues to shape the nation today.