Uploaded November 2023 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
Clara Brown made history as a founding settler of Central City Colorado. After gaining her freedom from slavery, she became a philanthropic force for good.
Acts of Faith: Religion and the American West is an exhibition that explores the interplay between religion and US expansion in the 19th-century West in order to illuminate how religion became such a vital and contested part of American life. Acts of Faith takes visitors beyond the mythologized “Wild West” of popular culture to present a fuller and surprising picture: a West populated by preachers, pilgrims, and visionaries and home to sacred grounds and cathedrals that kindled spiritual feeling from the woodlands of New York all the way to the valleys of California. The narrative highlights the experiences and traditions of people who, voluntarily or involuntarily, took part in this chaotic and transformative era—including diverse Native peoples, Protestant missionaries, Mormon settlers, Catholic communities, African American migrants, Jewish traders, and Chinese immigrant workers.
nyhistory.org/exhibitions/acts-of-faith-religion-and-the-american-west
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#newyorkhistoricalsociety #history
Clara Brown made history as a founding settler of Central City Colorado. After gaining her freedom from slavery, she became a philanthropic force for good.
Acts of Faith: Religion and the American West is an exhibition that explores the interplay between religion and US expansion in the 19th-century West in order to illuminate how religion became such a vital and contested part of American life. Acts of Faith takes visitors beyond the mythologized “Wild West” of popular culture to present a fuller and surprising picture: a West populated by preachers, pilgrims, and visionaries and home to sacred grounds and cathedrals that kindled spiritual feeling from the woodlands of New York all the way to the valleys of California. The narrative highlights the experiences and traditions of people who, voluntarily or involuntarily, took part in this chaotic and transformative era—including diverse Native peoples, Protestant missionaries, Mormon settlers, Catholic communities, African American migrants, Jewish traders, and Chinese immigrant workers.
nyhistory.org/exhibitions/acts-of-faith-religion-and-the-american-west
***
For more about the New-York Historical Society, visit our website: nyhistory.org
***
Subscribe to our channel: youtube.com/c/nyhistory?sub_confirmation=1
Check out our full video catalog: youtube.com/c/nyhistory
Instagram: instagram.com/nyhistory
Facebook: facebook.com/nyhistory
Twitter: twitter.com/NYHistory
#newyorkhistoricalsociety #history
