The Third Great Awakening refers to a historical period proposed by William G. McLoughlin that was marked by religious activism in American history and spans the late 1850s to the early 20th century.
A similar awakening took place in Britain, identified by J. Edwin Orr as starting in 1859 with its influence continuing through to the end of the 19th century, impacting church growth, overseas mission, and social action.
The American Protestant mainline churches were growing rapidly in numbers, wealth and educational levels, throwing off their frontier beginnings and becoming centered in towns and cities.
Intellectuals and writers such as Josiah Strong advocated a muscular Christianity with systematic outreach to the unchurched in America and around the globe.
[5] The great majority of pietistic mainline Protestants (in the North) supported the Republican Party and urged it to endorse prohibition and social reforms.
The historian Robert Fogel identifies numerous reforms, especially the battles involving child labor, compulsory elementary education, and the protection of women from exploitation in factories.
In July 1879, Russell began publishing a monthly religious journal, Zion's Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence.
The goal of the Holiness movement in the Methodist church was to move beyond the one-time conversion experience that the revivals produced and reach entire sanctification.
During a service on December 31, 1899, Parham laid hands on a woman named Agnes Ozman; she is supposed to have received the baptism of the Holy Spirit and to have begun speaking in tongues and prophesying.
This is the root of the better known "Azusa Street Revival" in Los Angeles, California (1906) led by William J. Seymour, an African American student of Parham's.