Hero of the Heartland: Billy Sunday and the Transformation of American Society

by Robert F. Martin

Join me and my guest Rebecca Kubacki and special guest Brent Wilcoxson, Managing director of Village at Winona, as we discuss Robert F. Martin’s novel "Hero of the Heartland: Billy Sunday and the Transformation of American Society" and prepare a traditional family picnic at today’s Taste of Winona.

Author Robert F. Martin demonstrates that beneath all of Billy Sunday’s flamboyance, the orphan-turned-baseball player-turned-evangelist embodied the tensions of his age. Billy Sunday was the most popular and influential evangelist of his time. Between 1896 and 1935, the colorful Iowa-born evangelist toured first his native Midwest and then the nation, preaching in tent and tabernacle, espousing a simplistic but, for many, satisfying interpretation of Christianity. This episode of Dinner and a Book will track the rise and decline of The tabernacle style of preaching with the rise of the Chautauque movement and it resurgence in the 21st century at the Village at Winona.

Original Air-Date: 9.12.2009