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Biography & Autobiography Historical

Evangelical Balance Sheet

Character, Family, and Business in Mid-Victorian Nova Scotia

by (author) B. Anne Wood

Publisher
Wilfrid Laurier University Press
Initial publish date
Feb 2020
Category
Historical, Post-Confederation (1867-), Customs & Traditions
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9781554586202
    Publish Date
    Feb 2020
    List Price
    $39.99
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9780889205000
    Publish Date
    Aug 2006
    List Price
    $89.99
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781554588237
    Publish Date
    Oct 2010
    List Price
    $48.99

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Description

Using the journals of W. Norman Rudolf (1835-1886), a Victorian merchant, Evangelical Balance Sheet: Character, Family, and Business in Mid-Victorian Nova Scotia explores the important role of character ideals and evangelicalism in mid-Victorian culture.
Rudolf’s diary, with its daily weather observations, its account of family matters, of social and business happenings, and of his own experiences, as well as occasional literary or naturalistic forays, attempts to follow a disciplined regime of writing, but also has elements of a Bildungsroman. The diary reveals an obvious and significant tension between his inner, spiritual search for meaning in his life (evangelical inwardness) and his outward stewardship duties. Rudolf’s concept of character, then, involved a type of balance sheet of his evangelical service record, to his God, his family, his business, and his community. Needing God’s help to transform his will and to interpret the world in a constructive, rational manner, the underlying intent of his daily journal writing was to keep his commitment to an ethic of benevolence and of the affirmation of the goodness of human beings.
Wood elucidates the cultivation of civic-minded masculinity in the context of Victorian Maritime Canada, analyzing the multiple facets of the character ideal and emphasizing its important role in Victorians’ understanding of their life experiences. In the process Wood reveals many underlying assumptions about social change and about civic discourse. The book also describes how the tremendous economic upheavals experienced by many entrepreneurs in the late 1860s to 1880s tempered their evangelical zeal and made it increasingly difficult for them to achieve a balanced and humane perspective on their own lives.
Evangelical Balance Sheet will appeal to a broad audience interested in social history, imperial studies, gender studies (especially changing ideas of masculinity and manhood), Atlantic Canada studies, and local history of the Pictou region.

About the author

B. Anne Wood taught in the School of Education at Dalhousie University in Halifax. Author of many articles on political, social, and religious history, especially of Pictou County, Nova Scotia, her book Idealism Transformed: The Making of a Progressive Educator received the Founders’ Prize from the Canadian History of Education Association. She lives in Victoria, BC.

B. Anne Wood's profile page