WhoFish - Local Events and Activities

Title:	Acts of Faith: Religion & the American West
Date:	4/5/2025 - 8/24/2025
Address:	Bullock Texas State History Museum, 1800 Congress Ave., Austin, TX 78701
Location:	Austin, TX
Hours:	10:00am - 5:00pm
Cost/Cover:	free - $15
Web Page:	https://www.thestoryoftexas.com/visit/exhibits/acts-of-faith
Contact Info:	512-936-8746

Details:

The “American West” as we know it emerged in the 1800s during U.S. expansion. But what did religion have to do with it? And how did western expansion change America’s religious landscape? Acts of Faith: Religion & the American West explores the dramatic interplay between religion and U.S. expansion in the 19th-century West. Guiding visitors on a sprawling journey through a diverse array of places and communities, the exhibition illuminates how religion became such a vital and contested part of American life. Investigating the convictions and beliefs that shaped westward expansion throughout the 19th century, Acts of Faith takes visitors beyond the mythologized “Wild West” of popular culture and presents a fuller, more surprising picture: a West populated by preachers, pilgrims, and visionaries, and home to sacred grounds and cathedrals that kindled spiritual feeling from the woodlands of New York to the valleys of California. This exhibition highlights the experiences of a breadth of people who, voluntarily or involuntarily, took part in this momentous, chaotic story — including diverse Native peoples, Protestant missionaries, settlers from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Catholic communities, African American migrants, Jewish traders, and Chinese immigrant workers.