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One of the great entertainments of the nineteenth century was public speaking, and the pronounced oratory skills and intellect of Robert G. Ingersoll made him a popular circuit speaker in the latter half of that century. The Illinois lawyer made hundreds of public appearances across the country during that time, discussing matters political, historical, philosophical, and theological. However, he...

The turn of the twentieth century brought with it the end of the Golden Age of American freethought. As indicated at the beginning of the previous chapter, progressive reformers and conservative evangelicals alike actively participated in a “Third Great Awakening” during the early part of the century (McLoughlin 1978). Susan Jacoby pointed to the 1920s specifically as a decade that...

As noted in the last chapter, a number of publications survived past the immediate postwar years. Progressive World published into the 1970s, and The American Rationalist reached the twenty-first century; The Humanist is still published...

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Atheists, as we have seen, struggled for decades to establish a space in which to articulate political claims and forge alliances. Unlike their counterparts on the side of belief, they found resources scarce and opportunities tightly constrained. The last chapter detailed how organizations, and particularly Madalyn...

In January 2006, a self-described “22-year-old Atheist from Chicago” created a post on the online auctions site eBay. The post had a simple request: “send me to church.” The author, Hemant Mehta, explained:

By the turn of the twenty-first century, the atheist movement was developing into a more coherent force in American politics. Despite some growing pains, the explosive growth of Internet use during the decade would allow a cadre of online bloggers to articulate atheist interests and concerns and disseminate them across the country. Atheists were combating decades of framing that tied them to...

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