The First Great Awakening was a religious revival movement of the 1730s and 1740s in British North America, marked by emotional preaching from figures like Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield, that spread evangelical Protestantism, increased religious pluralism, and helped colonists develop a shared American identity.
The First Great Awakening was a wave of religious revivals that swept through the British colonies in the 1730s and 1740s. Preachers like Jonathan Edwards (famous for "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God") and the touring British evangelist George Whitefield delivered emotional, accessible sermons that emphasized personal conversion and individual piety over formal church ritual. Whitefield preached outdoors to crowds of thousands, drawing people from every colony, class, and denomination.
For APUSH, the Awakening matters less as a church history event and more as a colonial unity event. The CED frames it as part of the movement of people and ideas across the Atlantic (KC-2.2.I.A). The Awakening enhanced religious pluralism and intellectual exchange, and the spread of Protestant evangelicalism, alongside transatlantic print culture, was part of the gradual Anglicization of the colonies (KC-2.2.I.B). It also taught ordinary colonists something subversive. If you could question your own minister's authority, questioning a distant king's authority got a lot easier. That greater religious independence later fed directly into resistance to imperial control (KC-2.2.I.D).
The First Great Awakening lives in Topic 2.7 (Colonial Society and Culture) and directly supports APUSH 2.7.A, which asks you to explain how the movement of people and ideas across the Atlantic shaped American culture. The CED names the Awakening explicitly in KC-2.2.I.A as something that enhanced pluralism and intellectual exchange, and evangelicalism shows up again in KC-2.2.I.B as part of Anglicization. It also feeds APUSH 2.7.B and KC-2.2.I.D, because religious independence and diversity became one of the wells colonists drew from when resisting imperial control. That makes the Awakening a Unit 2 event with a Unit 3 payoff. It's one of the best examples you have for the American and National Identity (NAT) theme in Period 2, since it was the first experience millions of colonists shared across colonial borders.
Keep studying APUSH Unit 2
George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards (Unit 2)
These two are the faces of the Awakening on the exam. Edwards represents the homegrown intellectual side, while Whitefield's colony-to-colony preaching tours show ideas physically crossing the Atlantic and then crossing colonial borders, exactly what APUSH 2.7.A asks you to explain.
Religious pluralism (Unit 2)
The Awakening split congregations into "New Lights" who embraced revivalism and "Old Lights" who didn't, multiplying denominations. More religious options meant no single church could dominate, which is the pluralism KC-2.2.I.A says the Awakening enhanced.
Enlightenment ideas and revolutionary ideology (Units 2-3)
The CED pairs the Awakening with the Enlightenment as twin transatlantic idea-movements. Together they form the intellectual backstory to Topic 3.1, because colonists who had already challenged religious authority and absorbed Enlightenment political thought were primed to challenge Parliament. KC-2.2.I.D lists religious independence right next to Enlightenment thought as a source of resistance to imperial control.
Anglicization and transatlantic print culture (Unit 2)
Here's the paradox worth knowing. The Awakening made colonists more British (shared Protestant evangelicalism, shared print culture, per KC-2.2.I.B) while simultaneously making them more American by giving them a common intercolonial experience. That tension is great LEQ material for continuity and change in Topic 3.13.
On multiple choice, the First Great Awakening usually shows up attached to a stimulus, like an image of Whitefield preaching outdoors or an excerpt from an Edwards sermon. Fiveable practice questions mirror this, asking what an outdoor sermon illustrates about the movement (mass appeal, emotional preaching, crossing denominational lines) or what evidence would contradict claims about Whitefield's impact. So you need to read the source, then connect it to the bigger trend of evangelicalism spreading and authority being challenged. On free-response questions, the Awakening is high-value evidence rather than a prompt by itself. The 2023 LEQ on how transatlantic trade changed colonial society from 1607 to 1776 rewarded mentions of transatlantic exchange of ideas, and the Awakening fits any prompt about colonial identity, unity before 1754, or the ideological origins of the Revolution. The move the exam rewards is causation. Don't just describe revivals; explain that questioning religious authority laid groundwork for questioning political authority.
Same name, different century, different consequences. The First Great Awakening (1730s-40s, Unit 2) featured Edwards and Whitefield and contributed to colonial unity before the Revolution. The Second Great Awakening (early 1800s, Unit 4) featured preachers like Charles Finney and fueled antebellum reform movements such as abolition and temperance. If the question involves reform societies, women's activism, or the market revolution era, it's the Second. If it involves colonial society or pre-Revolutionary identity, it's the First.
The First Great Awakening was a religious revival movement in the 1730s and 1740s led by emotional preachers like Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield.
The CED (KC-2.2.I.A) credits the Awakening with enhancing religious pluralism and intellectual exchange in the colonies, alongside Enlightenment ideas.
It was the first truly intercolonial experience, since Whitefield's tours and printed sermons reached colonists in every region and helped build a shared American identity.
By teaching colonists to challenge established religious authority, the Awakening fed the religious independence that KC-2.2.I.D lists as a source of resistance to British imperial control.
On the exam, use the Awakening as evidence for transatlantic exchange of ideas, growing colonial unity before 1754, or the ideological roots of the Revolution.
Don't confuse it with the Second Great Awakening of the early 1800s, which belongs to Unit 4 and connects to antebellum reform, not the Revolution.
It was a religious revival movement in the 1730s and 1740s, led by preachers like Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield, that spread evangelical Protestantism across the British colonies. APUSH treats it as a key example of transatlantic ideas creating a shared colonial identity (Topic 2.7, KC-2.2.I.A).
No, not directly, and saying it did will hurt your essay. It came 30 years before the imperial crisis. What you can argue is that it contributed indirectly, because the habit of challenging religious authority and the experience of intercolonial unity made political resistance to Britain easier (KC-2.2.I.D).
The First (1730s-40s) is a colonial-era event tied to Edwards, Whitefield, and pre-Revolutionary identity in Unit 2. The Second (early 1800s) is a Unit 4 event tied to Charles Finney and antebellum reforms like abolition and temperance. Mixing them up is one of the most common APUSH errors.
Jonathan Edwards, the New England theologian behind "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," and George Whitefield, the British evangelist whose outdoor sermons drew thousands as he toured the colonies. Whitefield is a favorite stimulus source on multiple-choice questions.
It was the first mass movement to cross colonial boundaries. Colonists from New England to Georgia heard the same preachers, read the same printed sermons, and shared the same revival experience, which gave them a common identity decades before they shared a government.