Sunday, Billy

Sunday, Billy (William Ashley Sunday), 1863–1935, American evangelist, b. Ames, Iowa, in the era around World War I. A professional baseball player (1883–90), he later worked for the Young Men's Christian Association in Chicago (1891–95) and, during that time, became associated with the Presbyterian itinerant evangelist J. Wilbur Chapman (1859–1918). After leading a successful revival in Garner, Iowa (1896) Sunday became a full-time evangelist. Known as "the baseball evangelist," Sunday drew large crowds to his revivals with his flamboyant style. As the most popular American evangelist of the World War I era, he raised much of the popular support for prohibition.

Bibliography

See W. G. McLoughlin, Jr., Billy Sunday Was His Real Name (1955).

---

Sunday, Billy

 orig. William Ashley Sunday

(born Nov. 19, 1862/63, Ames, Iowa, U.S.—died Nov. 6, 1935, Chicago, Ill.) U.S. religious revivalist. He became a professional baseball player with the Chicago White Sox in 1883 and later played in Pittsburgh, Pa., and Philadelphia. In 1887 he underwent a conversion experience; he began preaching in 1897 and was ordained in the Presbyterian church in 1903. A flamboyant preacher of fundamentalist theology whose sermons reflected the social upheaval caused by the transition from a rural to an urban society, he advocated a strict morality and campaigned effectively for Prohibition. He conducted hundreds of revival meetings and reached an estimated 100 million people. His popularity faded in the 1920s, but he continued preaching until his death.

---

Sunday, (William Ashley) Billy (1862–1935) Protestant evangelist; born in Ames, Iowa. He grew up in poverty but managed to complete high school before joining the Chicago White Sox baseball team in 1883. He underwent a religious conversion in 1887, and, after retiring as a player in 1891, went to work for the YMCA in Chicago. His fabulously successful career as an evangelist began in 1896. A flamboyant fundamentalist, his denunciations of science, liquor, and political liberalism attracted an enormous following, especially in rural areas. Although his influence began to decline after about 1920, he continued preaching to the end of his life.