The Public Universal Friend: Jemima Wilkinson and Religious Enthusiasm in Revolutionary America by Paul B Moyer

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Public Universal Friend: Jemima Wilkinson and Religious Enthusiasm in Revolutionary America by Paul B Moyer Kyle B. Roberts The Public Universal Friend: Jemima Wilkinson and Religious Enthusiasm in Revolutionary America. By Paul B. Moyer. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2015, 264 pages, $27.95 Cloth. On 11 October 1776, family and friends were startled to discover that the person they had known as Jemima Wilkinson, a twenty-three-year-old Quaker woman from Rhode Island, had, upon recovering from what looked like a fatal illness, been reborn as the Public Universal Friend. A divine genderless spirit had taken the body of “an unremarkable person who lived in an unremarkable corner of early America” (13), as historian Paul B. Moyer explains in his new book, in order to serve as a holy messenger preparing the world for the return of Christ. The Universal Friend’s embrace of male and female attributes would be a cause of wonderment— and consternation—for the next four decades. While dozens of books have been written about Ann Lee, that other revolutionary-era prophet and founder of the Shakers whose ministry radically challenged spiritual and secular gender conventions of the time, less attention has been paid to Wilkinson. Moyer’s welcome study is only the third book-length exploration of the prophet, following Herbert A. Wisbey Jr’s classic Pioneer Prophetess (1964) and Frances Dumas’s more recent The Unquiet World (2010). It is a study focused as much on the women and men who followed the Universal Friend—numbering 260 strong at their peak in 1790—as it is about their spiritual leader. Where the surviving primary source material written by the Universal Friend runs thin, Moyer’s consideration of the experience of her devoted followers—as well as her apostates—provides a rich picture of belief and practice. The arrival of the Universal Friend in the fall of 1776 was well-timed. Radical overturning of convention seemed suddenly possible in the months after thirteen North American colonies declared independence from Great Britain. Much like the Revolution itself, the story of the Universal Friend’s ministry is a combination of radical and conservative strains. While scholars have acknowledged the opportunities the Revolution offered for innovation, Moyer cautiously pushes back against interpretations by historians [End Page 239] of American religion and gender that see fewer gains for women in the post-revolutionary institutionalization of religion. In the Universal Friend’s gender-bending presentation of self, but perhaps even more importantly in the communities of the faithful, emerged modes of women’s spiritual leadership that surpassed other Protestant groups of the time. Not only is this a chronological study of the life and ministry of an unusual religious figure and followers, but Moyer recognizes how their experience provides a valuable lens on larger issues shaping revolutionary and early national America. Despite a tradition of dividing American religious activity into First and Second Great Awakenings that straddle the war for independence, Moyer joins Steve Marini and other scholars in showing how the conflict fueled religious activity. The Quakers from southeastern New England who made up the majority of the Universal Friend’s initial converts felt the onset of war acutely. Close analysis of early followers’ writings convincingly reveals that instability, anxiety, and loss were more salient factors in their decision than social or economic concerns. Early converts led fairly comfortable lives but were spiritual seekers hungry for a path to salvation, encouragement to develop their individual spiritual gifts, and stability and order in a time when political allegiances were suspect. The Universal Friend’s message, Moyer argues, was a combination of fairly standard orthodox religious themes not unlike those embraced by contemporary Quakers and New Light evangelicals, but its delivery “with a disarming confidence and air of conviction” (24) by such an unconventional messenger offered comfort in the midst of an unsettling war. In expanding the ministry to Philadelphia after the war, the Universal Friend and followers were opened up to discussion in a vibrant urban public sphere. Unorthodox ideas about gender conventions provoked more debate than the Universal Friend’s orthodox creed. Philadelphians took to their newspapers to express their anxieties about...