 It was after the religious revivals of the eighteenth and early nineteenth century in Britain and America – revivals that led to such sects as the Methodists – that a more full-blooded literalism became a major part of the religious scene. In America particularly literalism took hold, and especially after the Civil War, it took root in the evangelical sects – especially Baptists – of the South (Numbers 1998; Noll 2002). It became part of the defining culture of the South, having (as we shall see below) as much a role in opposing ideas and influences of the leaders and policy makers of the North as anything rooted in deeply thought-through theology. Note the important qualification, ‘leaders and policy makers’ of the North. Many – especially working and lower-middle-class people – living in the large cities of the North felt deeply threatened by the moves to industrialism, the weakening of traditional beliefs, and the large influx of immigrants from Europe. They provided very fertile material for the literalist preachers. (See the extended discussions of these happenings in Ruse 2013.) Thanks to a number of factors, Creationism started to grow dramatically in the early part of the twentieth century. First, there were the first systematic attempts to work out a position that would take account of modern science as well as just a literal reading of Genesis. Particularly important in this respect were the Seventh-day Adventists, especially the Canadian-born George McCready Price, who had theological reasons for wanting literalism, not the least being the belief that the Seventh Day – the day of rest – is literally twenty-four hours in length. Also important for the Adventists and for fellow travelers, that is people who think that Armageddon is on its way, is the balancing and complementary early phenomenon of a world-wide flood. (This, as we shall see, was to become a major theme in twentieth-century Cold War times.) Second, there was the released energy of evangelicals (referring generically to Protestants whose faith was tied to the Bible, taken rather literally) as they succeeded in their attempts to prohibit liquor in the United States. Flushed from one victory, they looked for other fields to conquer. Third there was the spread of public education, and more children being exposed to evolutionary ideas, bringing on a Creationist reaction. Fourth, there were new evangelical currents afloat, especially the tracts the Fundamentals – a series of evangelical publications, conceived in 1909 by California businessman Lyman Stewart, the founder of Union Oil and a devout Presbyterian – that gave the literalist movement its name. And fifth, there was the identification of evolution – Darwinism particularly – with the militaristic aspects of Social Darwinism, especially the Social Darwinism supposed embraced by the Germans in the First World War (Larson 1997; Ruse 2018a).