Lyman Stewart and the Funding of Fundamentalism

At the turn of the 20th century, no layperson exerted more influence on American Protestantism than Lyman Stewart, the wildcatting founder and president of Union Oil of California. Despite his greater prestige, John D. Rockefeller's liberal Protestant philanthropic empire—highlighted by the University of Chicago—had less impact on American society than Stewart's more modest fundamentalist networks. Rivals in earthly business as well, Stewart's company, Union Oil of California, constantly warred with Rockefeller's mammoth Standard Oil. This paper explores how Stewart sought to build a moral society in Southern California, based on Victorian ideals and Progressive methods, and how his work was motivated by both his economic commitments to wildcat capitalism and his religious theories of dispensational premillennialism.

Stewart’s moral concerns ranged from grand visions—such as publishing The Fundamentals to “set forth the fundamentals of the Christian faith”—to minor matters of social order. For instance, Stewart siphoned Union Oil money to build chapels and fund evangelistic crusades after he became concerned about the rampant swearing of workers in his oil fields. Caught in riptides between his religious beliefs—a nascent dispensational fundamentalism—and his economic ideology—an emerging wildcat capitalism—Stewart constantly struggled to resolve the tensions between his economic, cultural, and religious ideals. Whether financing revival meetings to promote Victorian values and combat moral contamination, or issuing junk bonds to keep business competitors at bay, Stewart exemplified the complicated fundamentalist engagements with modernity. As chapels rose up next to derricks on the Union oil fields, Lyman Stewart sought to transform his black oil riches into a moral, Christian empire in Southern California.