Winning the West for Christ

On a high bluff overlooking Sioux City, Iowa, Sheldon Jackson (1834-1909) committed himself in prayer to "win the West for Christ" in the spring of 1869. As railroads opened the West after the Civil War and new communities sprang up along their tracks, Jackson began proselytizing on the frontier. When Jackson arrived in new towns he single-mindedly solicited members to organize Presbyterian churches. Within a decade he had established almost a hundred churches and missions as well as a number of schools. To sustain and expand his work, he trained and placed missionaries throughout the West. His zeal to spread the gospel included uncompromising campaigns against "the tidal wave of wickedness, the cesspools of iniquity, and the desperadoes." As allies he enlisted women's auxiliaries and others willing to pledge themselves and their money toward taming the West through churches and schools. This biography, the first since 1908, reinterprets Jackson in a sympathetic, yet balanced perspective.