Spiritual Work, Memory Work: Revival and Recollection at Salem Camp Meeting

Abstract

Abstract For over 175 years, Salem Campground, in north–central Georgia, has been the site of one of the oldest camp meetings in the United States. Camp meetings were originated by Methodist circuit riders on the Kentucky and Tennessee frontier at the end of the 18th century as religious revival meetings. Today, camp meeting remains one of the oldest distinctly American religious traditions. Camp meetings have become a mix of spiritual revival and family reunion, partly in response to the frequent dislocation of middle‐class families. In the 19th century, much of this mobility was because of the settlement of the western states. Today, it is because of job‐related relocations. In this article I look at camp meeting as a theater of family memory, and examine how social memory and identity updating for campers is enabled by the way camp meeting organizes time and space making possible a constant flow of family narrative. This ethnographically rich approach to camp meting offers a general framework for exploring conjunctures of individual and collective memory processes in other settings. [family, memory, religion, identity, revivalism]