Yale Professors Edit Textbook Series on Religion in American Life

Two Yale professors, Jon Butler and Harry Stout, are assembling the first series of textbooks on the history of religion in America designed expressly for secondary schools.

Two Yale professors, Jon Butler and Harry Stout, are assembling the first series of textbooks on the history of religion in America designed expressly for secondary schools.

The reference books are intended for high school teachers, to enhance their own knowledge, and as a resource for their students.

“It is impossible to ignore the degree to which religion has been a persistent influence in American history,” said Butler who – with Harry Stout – holds a joint appointment in history and religious studies. He said that while the subject has been treated extensively on a scholarly level, research materials specifically geared to middle and high school students are scarce.

The six books that are already available cover such topics as the church and state, Jews, Mormons, Orthodox Christians, Native American and African American religions. Titles to follow include “Women and American Religion,” “Alternative Religious Traditions” and “Immigration and Religion.” Three books – on religion in Colonial America and in the 19th and 20th centuries – are grouped by chronology. Catholics, Muslims and Protestants are treated in three separate volumes. Three different authors are writing the one volume devoted to Buddhists, Hindus and Sikhs. The last of the 17 volumes will be an index and study guide.

Butler and Stout split the task of editing the books, all of which were written by well-regarded experts in their respective fields. The endeavor was a particularly challenging one, Butler notes, since each author had to pare down his or her encyclopedic knowledge to 125 double-spaced manuscript pages. “Every author had to write with great clarity,” said Butler, who wrote the volume on Colonial America, and is the author of a book about the Huguenots in America, among many publications.

The inspiration for these books arose from two sources. One was a women’s history series that had been put together by Yale professor Nancy Cott for the adolescent book division of Oxford University Press. Heavily illustrated and filling a unique niche in the textbook industry, the 11-volume series served as a model in concept and format.

The larger context of the undertaking is a Pew Foundation-funded program, the Institute for the Advanced Study of Religion at Yale, which promotes scholarly work on religion in American history. Over the past six years, the Foundation has granted about $3.2 million to fund graduate work and teaching fellowships in the field as well as an annual seminar at Yale that attracts historians from across the country. The Foundation recently awarded the Institute another $2.2 million, which enabled the project to go forward.

The series is also supported by the Freedom Forum, an international foundation based in Arlington, VA, dedicated to advancing First Amendment rights. The foundation is helping Oxford University Press prepare teacher guides to the series and has organized workshops to advise social studies educators how to teach about religion.

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Media Contact

Dorie Baker: dorie.baker@yale.edu, 203-432-1345