Article ID: CBB001251405

Science, Providence, and Progress at the Great Exhibition (2012)

unapi

The Great Exhibition of 1851 is generally interpreted as a thoroughly secular event that celebrated progress in science, technology, and industry. In contrast to this perception, however, the exhibition was viewed by many contemporaries as a religious event of considerable importance. Although some religious commentators were highly critical of the exhibition and condemned the display of artifacts in the Crystal Palace as giving succor to materialism, others incorporated science and technology into their religious frameworks. Drawing on sermons, tracts, and the religious periodical press, this essay pays close attention to the ways in which science and technology were endowed with providentialist significance and particularly examines the notion of human progress used by a number of Christian writers, especially Congregationalists, who set scientific and technological progress within a teleological religious perspective. This discussion sheds fresh light not only on the Great Exhibition itself but also on the deployment of natural theology in mid-nineteenth-century Britain.

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Authors & Contributors
Stanley, Matthew
Wheeler-Barclay, Marjorie
Walton, Michael Thomson
Vlahakis, George N.
Topham, Johnathan R.
Roberts, Michael B.
Concepts
Science and religion
Natural theology
Christianity
Religion
Bible
Natural philosophy
Time Periods
19th century
Medieval
18th century
17th century
Early modern
Modern
Places
Great Britain
Americas
United States
Greece
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