Sarah Osborn's World

A colonial woman's riveting personal journal and correspondence opens a window on America's first-generation evangelicals

In 1743, sitting quietly with pen in hand, Sarah Osborn pondered how to tell the story of her life, how to make sense of both her spiritual awakening and the sudden destitution of her family. Remarkably, the memoir she created that year survives today, as do more than two thousand additional pages she composed over the following three decades. Sarah Osborn's World is the first book to mine this remarkable woman’s prolific personal and spiritual record. Catherine Brekus recovers the largely forgotten story of Sarah Osborn's life as one of the most charismatic female religious leaders of her time, while also connecting her captivating story to the rising evangelical movement in eighteenth-century America.

A schoolteacher in Rhode Island, a wife, and a mother, Sarah Osborn led a remarkable revival in the 1760s that brought hundreds of people, including many slaves, to her house each week. Her extensive written record—encompassing issues ranging from the desire to be "born again" to a suspicion of capitalism—provides a unique vantage point from which to view the emergence of evangelicalism. Brekus sets Sarah Osborn's experience in the context of her revivalist era and expands our understanding of the birth of the evangelical movement—a movement that transformed Protestantism in the decades before the American Revolution.

Jurnalul personal si corespondenta unei femei coloniale deschide o fereastra asupra evanghelistilor din prima generatie americana. In 1743, stand linistita cu pixul in mana, Sarah Osborn s-a gandit cum sa spuna povestea vietii sale, cum sa dea sens atat trezirii ei spirituale, cat si destituirea brusca a familiei sale. In mod remarcabil, memoriile pe care le-a creat in acel an supravietuieste astazi, la fel ca peste doua mii de pagini suplimentare pe care le-a compus in urmatoarele trei decenii.