Burned-over district

The "burned-over district" comprises Western and parts of Central New York State. In the early 19th century, religious revivals and the formation of new religious movements of the Second Great Awakening took place to such a great extent that spiritual fervor expanded like a forest fire.

Charles Grandison Finney (1792–1875) popularized the term: his posthumous 1876 book Autobiography of Charles G. Finney referred to a "burnt district" to denote an area in central and western New York State during the Second Awakening:

I found that region of country what, in the western phrase, would be called, a "burnt district." There had been, a few years previously, a wild excitement passing through that region, which they called a revival of religion, but which turned out to be spurious. ... It was reported as having been a very extravagant excitement; and resulted in a reaction so extensive and profound, as to leave the impression on many minds that religion was a mere delusion. A great many men seemed to be settled in that conviction. Taking what they had seen as a specimen of a revival of religion, they felt justified in opposing anything looking toward the promoting of a revival.

These spurious movements created feelings of apprehension towards the revivals in which Finney was influential as a preacher.

In references where the religious revival is related to reform movements of the period, such as abolition, women's rights, utopian social experiments, anti-Masonry, Mormonism, prohibition, vegetarianism, and Seventh-Day Adventism, the "burned-over" region expands to include other areas of Upstate New York that were important to these movements.^{[citation needed]}

Historical study of the phenomenon began with Whitney R. Cross, in 1951. Subsequent study in the last quarter of the twentieth century re-assessed the extent to which religious fervor actually affected the region. Linda K. Pritchard uses statistical data to show that, compared to the rest of New York State, to the Ohio River Valley in the lower Midwest, and to the United States as a whole, the religiosity of the burned-over district was typical rather than exceptional. More recent works have argued that these revivals in Western New York had a unique and lasting impact upon the religious and social life of the entire nation.

Western New York was still an American frontier during the early Erie Canal boom, and professional and established clergy were scarce. Many of the self-taught people were susceptible to enthusiasms of folk religion. Evangelists won many converts to Protestant sects, such as Congregationalists, Baptists, and Methodists. Converts in nonconformist sects became part of numerous new religious movements, all of which were founded by laypeople during the early 19th century, including:

In addition to religious activity, the region known as the burned-over district was noted for social radicalism. The Oneida Institute (1827–1843) was a center of abolitionism and the first college in the country to admit black students on the same terms as white students. The short-lived New-York Central College was the first college to accept both black students and women from its beginning and was also the first college in the country to employ African-American professors. Alfred University is the oldest surviving college in the United States to admit women to all its programs of study, rather than having female-specific programs.