How Did The Kingdom Of Matthias Affect Society

“The Kingdom of Matthias,” provides a powerful insight to the turbulent effects the religious revival known as the Second Great Awakening and the Market Revolution had on the individuals that lived through these events in the United States. Although both of these events were striving for a more perfect society were everyone had an equal and prosperous chance of living, some individuals were unhappy with such outcomes and sought to keep the traditional society that served the basis for American society. As a result, the clashing difference between the rural communities and the urban life became apparent in the accounts of Elijah Pierson and Robert Mathews as both men have difficulties in adapting to the societal structures, in terms of gender,

He blamed his failed economic and commercial ventures on the system created by the Market Revolution and consequently, “there would be no market, no money, no buying or selling, no wage system with its insidious domination of one father over another, no economic oppression of any kind” in his kingdom as an attempt to strike out against the Market Revolution (96). Matthias further attacked this culture by moving his so called “kingdom” to the countryside to “[revive] the rural ways he had known in his youth” (106). This is further exacerbated as Matthias changed decorum that “stemmed…from his hatred of new-fangled, middle-class ways introduced by the market revolution” (109). Much of his hatred towards the revolution was due to his own failures at that instance and thus, Matthias’s Kingdom tried to “[echo] the rustic abundance of [his] half-remembered, half-idealized Coila,” where rural, traditional roots were most predominant (110). Those failures Matthias faced were a direct result of the drastic and surprising rise of the Market Revolution which displaced many men from rural communities to cities where they had to find a way to make a living as best they could. This makes it apparent that despite his vigorous recitation and belief in his Judaic principles of God, Matthias’s resentment for the Market Revolution was a fundamental event for the creation of his kingdom, in addition to the opposition of the dramatic societal change the were occurring in the United