The (First) Great Awakening was a wave of evangelical religious revivals in the British colonies during the 1730s and 1740s, led by preachers like Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield, that emphasized emotional personal faith, increased religious pluralism, and helped colonists build a shared intercolonial identity.
The Great Awakening (usually called the First Great Awakening in APUSH) was a series of evangelical revivals that swept through British North America in the 1730s and 1740s. Preachers like Jonathan Edwards (famous for "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God") and the touring English minister George Whitefield preached that salvation came through a personal, emotional conversion experience, not just church attendance or obeying a minister. Whitefield drew massive outdoor crowds up and down the coast, making him one of the first celebrities all thirteen colonies had in common.
The CED frames the Awakening as a transatlantic movement of ideas. Per KC-2.2.I.A, the First Great Awakening (alongside Enlightenment ideas) enhanced the pluralism and intellectual exchange already present in the colonies. It split churches into "New Light" revivalists and "Old Light" traditionalists, multiplied denominations like Baptists and later Methodists, and reached groups the established churches often ignored, including women, poor colonists, and enslaved and free Black people. Here's the line that makes it click for the exam. The Awakening taught ordinary colonists that they could judge authority for themselves, and that habit of questioning didn't stay inside the church.
The Great Awakening lives in Unit 2, Topic 2.7 (Colonial Society and Culture) and directly supports learning objective APUSH 2.7.A, which asks you to explain how the movement of people and ideas across the Atlantic shaped American culture. It's named in the essential knowledge itself, so it's fair game on any question about colonial culture, Anglicization, or transatlantic print culture (KC-2.2.I.B). It also feeds APUSH 2.7.B and Topic 3.3, because KC-2.2.I.D lists "greater religious independence and diversity" as one of the sources colonists drew on when resisting imperial control. In other words, the Awakening is a Unit 2 concept that pays off in Unit 3. It works for the American and National Identity theme too, since shared revivals were one of the first experiences that connected colonists across regional lines before they thought of themselves as anything like "Americans."
Keep studying APUSH Unit 3
Enlightenment Ideas (Units 2-3)
The CED pairs the Great Awakening and the Enlightenment in the same essential knowledge point (KC-2.2.I.A) because both crossed the Atlantic and both taught colonists to question inherited authority. The Enlightenment did it through reason; the Awakening did it through emotional faith. Together they supplied the intellectual fuel for revolutionary resistance in Topic 3.3.
Taxation without Representation (Unit 3)
KC-2.2.I.D says colonial resistance drew on "greater religious independence and diversity." Colonists who had already rejected Old Light ministers found it easier to reject Parliament. The Awakening is a go-to contextualization or outside-evidence point for any FRQ on the causes of the Revolution.
Developing an American Identity (Unit 3)
Topic 3.11 asks about continuities and changes in American culture from 1754 to 1800. The Awakening is the continuity side of that argument. The shared evangelical culture and intercolonial connections it built in the 1740s carried into the new nation's emerging identity.
Second Great Awakening (Unit 4)
The sequel matters as much as the original. The Second Great Awakening (early 1800s) reused the revival playbook and powered antebellum reform, including the Abolitionist Movement and early women's rights activism. Knowing which Awakening goes with which period is a classic APUSH trap.
Expect the Great Awakening mostly in Unit 2 multiple-choice sets, often paired with a stimulus like a Whitefield sermon excerpt, an image of an outdoor revival, or a colonial portrait used to show cultural trends. Practice questions ask things like how Whitefield's preaching style reflected the movement or what an image illustrates about the First Great Awakening, so you need to recognize the term from evidence, not just define it. On FRQs, the Awakening is high-value contextualization and outside evidence. The 2023 LEQ asking how transatlantic trade changed colonial society from 1607 to 1776 is exactly the kind of prompt where the Awakening earns points, since Whitefield's tours and revival pamphlets traveled the same Atlantic networks as goods. The biggest scoring risk is mixing it up with the Second Great Awakening; using the wrong one wrecks your periodization.
The First Great Awakening (1730s-1740s, Unit 2) happened in colonial America, led by Edwards and Whitefield, and connects to colonial pluralism and pre-revolutionary questioning of authority. The Second Great Awakening (early 1800s, Unit 4) happened in the new nation, featured camp meetings and preachers like Charles Finney, and fueled reform movements such as abolition and temperance. Quick check before you write. If the question is about colonies, it's the First; if it's about antebellum reform, it's the Second.
The First Great Awakening was a wave of evangelical revivals in the 1730s and 1740s that stressed emotional, personal conversion over formal church authority.
The CED (KC-2.2.I.A) credits the Awakening, along with Enlightenment ideas, with increasing religious pluralism and intellectual exchange in the British colonies.
George Whitefield's intercolonial preaching tours gave colonists one of their first shared cultural experiences, helping build a common identity before the Revolution.
The Awakening split churches into New Lights and Old Lights, and that habit of challenging traditional authority later fed colonial resistance to Britain (KC-2.2.I.D).
The movement spread through the same transatlantic print culture and Protestant evangelicalism the CED ties to Anglicization (KC-2.2.I.B), so it works as evidence on transatlantic trade and culture prompts.
Don't confuse it with the Second Great Awakening of the early 1800s, which belongs to Unit 4 and drives antebellum reform movements like abolition.
It was a series of evangelical religious revivals in the British colonies during the 1730s and 1740s, led by Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield, that emphasized emotional personal faith. In APUSH it lives in Topic 2.7 as a driver of colonial pluralism and a shared intercolonial culture.
No, not directly. But the CED (KC-2.2.I.D) lists greater religious independence and diversity among the sources colonists drew on when resisting imperial control, so the Awakening is a legitimate long-term contributing factor and a strong contextualization point for Revolution essays.
The First (1730s-1740s) was a colonial movement led by Edwards and Whitefield, tested in Unit 2. The Second (early 1800s) was a national movement with camp meetings that fueled Unit 4 reform movements like abolition and temperance. Getting the wrong one in an essay is a periodization error.
Jonathan Edwards, whose 1741 sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" is the classic stimulus excerpt, and George Whitefield, an Anglican itinerant whose preaching tours drew huge crowds across all the colonies.
Yes. It's named in the CED's essential knowledge for Topic 2.7 (KC-2.2.I.A), shows up in stimulus-based multiple-choice questions, and makes strong outside evidence on FRQs about colonial society, transatlantic exchange, or the roots of American identity.