Why the 19th Century Was a Golden Age of Doomsday Prophecies

In the 1830s, John Nelson Darby popularized the modern concept of the rapture, the belief that faithful Christians would be taken from Earth to meet Christ. Darby was a leading figure in the Plymouth Brethren, a Christian movement that emerged in Britain and Ireland in the 1820s. Rejecting established church hierarchies, the Brethren emphasized the authority of the Bible and believed that ministry should not be restricted to ordained clergy.

Darby also believed in the Bible as the only necessary religious tool or text. He embraced a structure that allowed believers to serve as ministers and spoke widely about dispensationalism, which divided life on earth into clear stages. He taught that faithful Christians would be taken up to meet Christ before a period of suffering and upheaval known as the Great Tribulation.

The Millerites, named for their leader William Miller, embraced the declaration that the world was due to end between 1843 and 1844. After earlier predictions failed, many Millerites embraced October 22, 1844, as the date of Christ's return. A satirical cartoon from 1844 depicts a Millerite locking himself inside a fireproof safe with snacks and brandy to prepare for the day.

Adherents sold property and even wore white “ascension robes” in anticipation of the destruction of the prevailing world order by fire. When the date came and went without Christ's return, the failed prediction became known as the Great Disappointment. Some followers abandoned the movement, while others reinterpreted the prophecy, helping lay the groundwork for new religious denominations, including the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Ursula Southeil, better known as Mother Shipton, died in the 16th century. That did not prevent her from gaining renewed fame in the 19th century.

Literature scholar Ed Simon traces this renewed fascination to an 1862 pamphlet published by Charles Hindley, which featured prophecies supposedly made by Shipton centuries earlier. Some appeared to foretell modern inventions, including railroads and telegraphs, lending her predictions an air of credibility. One prophecy was particularly alarming: “The world to an end shall come, / In eighteen hundred and eighty one.”

As 1881 approached, the prediction reportedly stirred anxiety among believers. It attracted enough attention that a book titled Mother Shipton Investigated was published that year, challenging the authenticity of the verses. Hindley admitted that he fabricated the prophecy.

In the late 1800s, Native communities faced violent suppression, political disenfranchisement, and dwindling resources. Louis S. Warren, author of God’s Red Son, points to the Native practice of the Ghost Dance as “an evangelical revival that synthesized ancient Indian beliefs with new millenarian teaching.”

Originating with visions described by the Northern Paiute leader Wovoka, the dance and its related belief system would bring about a new America in which the bison would return, Western settlers would leave and the land would be restored to Indigenous people and their risen dead.