Spiritless Pleasures

Abstract

In classrooms and museums, teaching by objects amounted to an objectifying discourse that was applied to guarantee that the curiosity of the objects did not get away from their lessons. For American Protestant educators and church leaders, an object lesson, the principal “God-given” pedagogy (Wood 1897:11), was successful only in so far as the lesson surpassed the object of instruction, leading to some theological, moral, or social truth. The organizers of the World in Boston drew on the popularity of materially grounded lessons to offer evidence of the progress of evangelism to its public. The exposition also posed problems because of its success; it was always on the verge of slipping away from its twin goals of educating a domestic audience about missions, and affecting a profound interest in and a charity for them. The pages of popular and religious media repeatedly warned audiences and participants alike to keep the object of missions on their minds. The exposition was expressed as distracting from, and, thus, seen as being anathema to its overriding spiritual aim. A discourse that fetishized the World emerged. Here, I examine how the exposition’s object lessons held an inherent, unresolved tension: the curiosity and fascination that drew audiences for reasons other than piety.

There is the element of the spectacular, but the spectacle is always instinct with the missionary motive. The Lepers Court and Medical Missions raise the “Why?” The same inquisition “Why?” raises at every turn, before mission compound and school and sod meeting house and Indian encampment. And the answer is always, “For Christ’s sake and cause— Missions.”

—Missions, 1911

Frequently, the tremendous crowds which pressed for the entrance were unable to get inside the doors, and all of this not for a play of dangerous moral tendencies, not even for a championship series in baseball, but for a demonstration of the highest purposes and most truly Christian emotions which man is capable.

—St. Andrew’s Cross, 1911