Turning Pews Into People: Estimating 19th Century Church Membership.

Quantitative studies of 19th Century American religion have long been frustrated by a lack of data on religious affiliation In this essay we use census data on churches to reconstruct detailed membership estimates for 1850, 1860, and 1870 by means of weighted least squares equations. We then assess the validity of our membership estimates by comparing them to surviving statistics for several denominations and by demonstrating the sensitivity of our rates to historical nuances. The results are reassuring. This means that scholars now will have adequate data to chart the growth of the denominations and the general increase in church membership in the 19th Century -- not only for the nation, but broken down by regions and states.
Our primary purpose in this essay was to present and validate our method for reconstructing church membership statistics from the 1850-1870 census reports. We think the close agreement between our estimates and the surviving statistics for several denominations is a strong argument for trusting our results. But, perhaps even stronger support is lent them by the sensitive way in which temporal, regional and denominational patterns in the data reflect known historical patterns and forces. In any event, we are confident that these data win permit more careful assessments of American religion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]