@article{THESIS,
      recid = {1647},
      author = {Koch, Philippa Rose},
      title = {Persistent Providence: Healing the Body and Soul in Early  America},
      publisher = {University of Chicago},
      school = {Ph.D.},
      address = {2016-06},
      number = {THESIS},
      pages = {275},
      abstract = {This dissertation argues that conceptions of providence  remained a significant force in eighteenth-century America  and the Atlantic world. Major studies of the Enlightenment  and secularization have focused on the declining influence  of providential thought at this time, and there were indeed  changes in the way that providence was imagined: the  created world was construed in more mechanistic ways that  required less divine intervention and posited a more  substantial realm for human observation and action. But  change is not the same as decline. Based on readings of  published and manuscript sources in both English and  German, this dissertation argues that belief in particular  providence continued to shape how early American  Christians—including Puritans, Congregationalists, German  Pietists, Methodists, and Presbyterians—reflected on and  responded to illness. The retrospective framework  established by Christians’ reflections conveyed an earnest  hope in God’s direction and intervention in the world and  shaped, in turn, their endeavors in medicine, benevolence,  and mission, and their responses to major social changes,  including slavery. Belief in providence remained an  enduring feature of American life; it connected the  intimate experience of sickness to the intellectual  arguments behind major political and social  transformations.},
      url = {http://knowledge.uchicago.edu/record/1647},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.6082/uchicago.1647},
}