Gospel hymnody may be viewed as the culmination of various musical, social, and religious developments of the 19th century. It was foreshadowed in such collections as:
&bull The Christian Lyre (1831),

a compilation containing spirituals, traditional hymn tunes and texts, and newly composed religious poems set to popular melodies from both Europe and the USA, in a melange that is a compromise between the exuberance of the camp-meeting spiritual and the more "respectable" hymn style of composers like:
&bull Lowell Mason and
&bull Thomas Hastings.