Speech, Script, and Print in 18th Century Methodism

FAIN: FT-53847-05

George Homer Williams
University of Missouri, Kansas City (Kansas City, MO 64110-2235)

This project explores the significance of speech, writing, and print to the early Methodist movement, from its origins to its fragmentation and separation from the Church of England at the end of the eighteenth century. "The Word Came with Power" seeks to explain the connections, intersections, and contradictions in technologies of communication, cultural practices, and religious belief. Drawing on extensive research in primary documents, this study investigates how and why the Methodists used oral and literate practices to their advantage to build a powerful, international religious and social movement.