Mode of Program Participation
Academic Scholarship
Participation Type
Paper
Presentation #1 Title
A Spiritualist Confronts Calvinism: The Curious Case of Jonathan Koons
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
My presentation profiles Jonathan Koons, a spiritualist who lived in Appalachian Ohio. Koons was considered one of the most impressive physical mediums of the 1850s, drawing visitors from as far away as Canada and New Orleans to his remote log cabin in the Appalachian foothills. His Athens County “spirit room,” built specifically for theatrical-style séances conducted in pitch dark, was known for a musical “angel band” that played along as Jonathan fiddled. Moreover, Koons is considered by historians of religion to be the innovator of the trumpet used for voice communication in séances. My paper will support Marc Demarest’s claim that Koons was “at least as important for the subsequent history of the spiritualist movement as the Fox sisters” who founded it in 1848.
In my paper I will establish that spiritualism within Appalachia was a religious movement largely confined to the northern sector. Second, I would like to suggest reasons for this geographical distribution. One possibility is that spiritualism was a reform movement tied to others, such as abolition and women’s rights, that were not as prevalent in the Southern states. This thesis is complicated by the fact that some parts of Central Appalachia were anti-slavery but did not embrace spiritualism. I will draw some data from an 1854 petition to Congress requesting a scientific investigation of spiritualist phenomena, which is available on www.iapsop.com. I will consult books such as Mark Lause’s Free Spirits: Spiritualism, Republicanism, and Radicalism in the Civil War Era as well as Howard Dorgan’s classic In the Hands of a Happy God: The “No Hellers” of Central Appalachia. I also have primary material on Jonathan Koons himself.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Sharon Hatfield is an independent scholar and writer in Athens, Ohio, who teaches part-time at Ohio University. She is the author of Never Seen the Moon: The Trials of Edith Maxwell and co-editor of An American Vein: Critical Readings in Appalachian Literature.
A Spiritualist Confronts Calvinism: The Curious Case of Jonathan Koons
My presentation profiles Jonathan Koons, a spiritualist who lived in Appalachian Ohio. Koons was considered one of the most impressive physical mediums of the 1850s, drawing visitors from as far away as Canada and New Orleans to his remote log cabin in the Appalachian foothills. His Athens County “spirit room,” built specifically for theatrical-style séances conducted in pitch dark, was known for a musical “angel band” that played along as Jonathan fiddled. Moreover, Koons is considered by historians of religion to be the innovator of the trumpet used for voice communication in séances. My paper will support Marc Demarest’s claim that Koons was “at least as important for the subsequent history of the spiritualist movement as the Fox sisters” who founded it in 1848.
In my paper I will establish that spiritualism within Appalachia was a religious movement largely confined to the northern sector. Second, I would like to suggest reasons for this geographical distribution. One possibility is that spiritualism was a reform movement tied to others, such as abolition and women’s rights, that were not as prevalent in the Southern states. This thesis is complicated by the fact that some parts of Central Appalachia were anti-slavery but did not embrace spiritualism. I will draw some data from an 1854 petition to Congress requesting a scientific investigation of spiritualist phenomena, which is available on www.iapsop.com. I will consult books such as Mark Lause’s Free Spirits: Spiritualism, Republicanism, and Radicalism in the Civil War Era as well as Howard Dorgan’s classic In the Hands of a Happy God: The “No Hellers” of Central Appalachia. I also have primary material on Jonathan Koons himself.
