The 1904–05 Welsh Revival: Modernization, Technologies, and Techniques of the Self

Abstract

Surveying the short history of pentecostalism in 1925, Frank Bartelman—a consummate “insider historian”—reckoned that although the Azusa Street revival had become “full grown” in Los Angeles, California, it was “rocked in the cradle of little Wales.” In pentecostal historiography much ink has been spilled connecting the causal dots of precedence. From whence did the movement come? Los Angeles? India? Topeka, Kansas? Historians of pentecostalism are cognizant of the 1904–05 Welsh revival; they readily acknowledged that it in some way influenced the Apostolic Faith Mission in Los Angeles. My goal here is not necessarily to argue one way or another but rather to resurrect from the dustbin of history a significant event that deserves its own due. This is a story, argues historian Rhodri Hayward, that “has been largely forgotten.”