Maintenance of a Tradition: An Analysis of Identity and Memory Making Processes at Rock Springs Camp-Meeting

1 online resource (70 pages) : PDF

2022

University of North Carolina at Charlotte

The Rock Springs camp-meeting in Denver, North Carolina is a communal religious gathering, the maintenance of which is passed down generationally and regarded by some as an important piece of Denver's community history. The camp-meeting phenomenon is an extant, Protestant revivalist tradition that still happens each summer across the United States. This thesis places the focus on how one camp-meeting community both speaks about and remembers their experiences tied to the place and event of Rock Springs camp-meeting. In this thesis I ask, how are memory- and identity- making processes expressed through oral history by long-standing camp meeting members? I argue that the stories they tell show that long-standing members set Rock Springs camp-meeting apart from the everyday world and representative of what long-standing camp participants view as an idealized "traditional" religion which they contrast with how they view the contemporary world outside of the campground. The narratives given to me in interview and questionnaire form by members of Rock Springs camp-meeting give insight into how an aging generation of people over fifty understand their roles as being both the inheritors and the stewards of a place where an idealized form of worship is preserved and a modern, contemporary world is interpreted.

masters theses

Religion

M.A.

American Revivalism
Camp-Meeting
Ethnography
Sacred Space

Religious Studies

McCloud, Sean

Maguire, Joanne
Hoenes del Pinal, Eric

Thesis (M.A.)--University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 2022.

This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s). For additional information, see http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/.

Copyright is held by the author unless otherwise indicated.

Manlove_uncc_0694N_13086