Preaching for progress: how the Social Gospel elevated the Canadian left beyond its U.S. counterpart
OA Version
Citation
Abstract
The following dissertation explores Werner Sombart’s century old question, “why is there no socialism in America?” from a comparative study of the Canadian Left and Social Christianity. I make the argument that the relative success of Left-liberal or ‘democratic-socialist’ politics in Canada is in no small part a product of social gospel efforts in the Canadian prairies. This importantly challenges the assumption by American historians that the “frontier” or agrarian nature of early 20th century North American life was a reason for socialism’s failure in the new world. Instead, through a comparison with Canadian prairie politics, historians can see that social gospelers in Canada viewed leftist politics as a natural extension of the nation-building process. Equipped with this view, radical Protestant ministers settled the Canadian prairies and turned rural-populist dissent into support for a strong welfare state. In the United States, the populist leanings of rural workers were either miscalculated, or worse ignored, by a middle-class social gospel ministry and an urban socialist movement. In the absence of a workable “spiritual” socialist movement in the American Heartland, populist politics were easily co-opted by ethno-nationalist, racialized, and fundamentalist reinterpretations of populism.
Description
2025
License
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International