In The Public Universal Friend: Jemima Wilkinson and Religious Enthusiasm in Revolutionary America, Dr. Paul B. Moyer argues, “The story of the Public Universal Friend and those who chose to join his holy mission illuminates how people navigated the currents of change set in motion by the American Revolution. It also shows that common folk, especially those like Jemima Wilkinson who did uncommon things, helped to make the Revolution revolutionary” (p. 10). Dr. Moyer structures his book into three main themes across seven chapters, with the first analyzing the prophet and his place in revolutionary America, chapter 5 focusing on the Universal Friends’ movement to New York and other westward migrations of the period, and the remaining chapters examining the role of gender in the Public Universal Friend’s movement and how it compared to post-revolutionary attitudes in the fledgling nation.
Jemima Wilkinson was born to a Quaker family on 29 November 1752 in Rhode Island. She grew ill during a typhoid plague in 1776 and believed that she died, at which point her spirit ascended into heaven and the spirit of a male angel, possibly the Holy Ghost, assumed control of her earthly body. From that point forward, she called herself by the name Public Universal Friend, used male pronouns, and began the life of an itinerant preacher preparing people for the end times. Dr. Moyer situates her preaching within the larger framework of millennial beliefs in the period between the first and second Great Awakenings, though he argues, “rather than being thought of as an essentially secular epoch sandwiched between two well-known periods of revivalism…the Revolution should be understood as a link in a continuous chain of religious activity” (p. 198). Rather, Dr. Moyer demonstrates how the Public Universal Friend’s challenge to the gender status quo originated in the reevaluation of social hierarchy that began during the Revolution and how the attacks on the Public Universal Friend and his group stemmed from the move toward more rigid gender roles in the early republic.
Dr. Moyer’s most significant contribution to the scholarship on the Public Universal Friend is his application of discourses from women’s and gender studies to better appreciate and contextualize both the revolutionary work of the prophet and the contemporary reactions to him. Regarding the outside world’s reactions to the prophet, Dr. Moyer writes, “A good deal of the attention the Friend drew was not a product of his spiritual message but of the novelty of an attractive female prophet” (p. 94). Though the world viewed the Public Universal Friend as a woman, he no longer saw himself that way. Dr. Moyer continues, “The way the prophet wore his hair not only supported his self-identification as a masculine holy figure, but also aimed to evoke the simple, honest virtues of an Old Testament prophet. In addition, the Friend labored in an era that celebrated austere republican virtue as an antidote to the luxury, excess, and corruption of monarchy; and his simple, unadorned hairstyle also drew legitimacy from this revolutionary discourse” (p. 95). Finally, in owning land, preaching in public, and leading a community in its mundane and spiritual life, the prophet transgressed the normal female boundaries and entered the sphere usually reserved for men.
Though other have researched the Public Universal Friend, Dr. Moyer has eschewed the narrative-driven work of previous historians to explore larger themes of the revolutionary mindset, but his greatest contribution is his focus on the role of gender in the prophet’s world and how the Public Universal Friend challenged these roles. His work compliments other examinations of religion in the early republic, such as Nathan O. Hatch’s The Democratization of American Christianity. His focus on thematic issues allowed Dr. Moyer to avoid the troubles of earlier historians who, in over-relying on contemporary records from those outside of the prophet’s sect, tended to portray the Public Universal Friend in an overwhelmingly negative light. Finally, Dr. Moyer’s writing style will appeal to academics and armchair historians alike. ( )