Cincinnati’s Infernal Regions Exhibit and the Waning of Calvinist Authority

Abstract

The Infernal Regions exhibit, which was hosted by Cincinnati’s Western Museum from 1828 to 1867, presented visitors with a vivid virtual hell. Created primarily by English author Francis Trollope and soon‐to‐be‐famous sculptor Hiram Powers, the exhibit featured an array of realistic, mobile automatons, as well as special effects of sound and lighting. Famous in its time, the simulated hell reflected a fundamental transformation of American religious culture. While some visitors took the exhibit’s content seriously, the producers of the Infernal Regions were critics of Calvinist theology, and they treated their subject – hell, damnation, and eternal suffering – as a source of entertainment and profit. While the mechanical ingenuity and novelty of the Infernal Regions drew thousands of paying customers, the religious content signaled the declining power of Christian ministers to control religious and moral discourse – especially the fading ability of educated Calvinist ministers to maintain rigorous doctrines of predestination and hell.