Religious Markets, Capital Markets, and Church Finances in Industrializing America

A number of scholars in recent years have turned to market models to describe religion in nineteenth-century America, arguing that competition among churches largely accounts for the nation’s relative religious vitality. However, a detailed examination of one religious ‘marketplace’—the city of Lowell, Massachusetts—demonstrates the limits of such interpretations. First, such scholars fail to capture the ways that Protestant churches functioned as an interdenominational de facto establishment, co-operating in the shared project of promoting the public good and defending moral norms. Also, to the extent that churches did compete, they competed for money, as much as for adherents. In doing so, they appropriated new methods accompanying the expansion of capitalism, competing for funds in nascent capital markets. Thus, churches appealed to individuals not primarily as consumers of religious goods, but as potential investors in religious institutions, and presented churches as both safe and profitable investments and bulwarks of social stability.