Commemorating Haymarket

By Heath Carter

2011 is proving to be a challenging year for organized labor in America and yet also a year full of banner anniversaries. Just over a month ago I blogged about the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. This weekend, meanwhile, Chicagoans will mark the 125th anniversary of the notorious Haymarket Affair, which transpired at Randolph and Des Plaines Streets on 4 May 1886. The tragedy that unfolded that night had dramatic ramifications for the American labor movement, spelling the doom, of course, of the Knights of Labor. It had profound reverberations in the world of the religious elite as well, fueling Protestant nativism and a joint Protestant/Catholic backlash against anything that remotely hinted of radicalism. All this is well-attested in the literature. But we know much less about the religious dimensions of the Great Upheaval. The years prior to 1886 saw not only a dramatic spike in the incidents of strikes but also in working-class criticism of the churches, which wage earners perceived to be moving ever more into solidarity with capital. In late-nineteenth-century Chicago, notably, the working classes' critiques were often framed not in materialistic but rather distinctly Christian categories: Jesus was a carpenter and "the laborer is worthy of his hire" were two frequent refrains. More on this at some point soon, but in the meantime, here's an interesting NY Times article that discusses the anniversary in light of current controversies; and also a list of events that the Illinois Labor History society is sponsoring to commemorate the occasion, including Saturday's reenactment and re-dedication of the Haymarket monument in Forest Park, IL. If you know of other events in your area, please feel free to share in the comments section. Finally, for those who don't know about the excellent teaching resources available via the Chicago History Museum website, both the digital collection and Dramas of Haymarket are well worth a look.

ASCH Spring Meeting Wrap-Up

By Heath Carter

While considerably smaller than the ASCH's joint meeting with the American Historical Association, this year's spring meeting in Grand Rapids nevertheless showcased a lot of exciting work, some from senior practitioners in the guild but much of it from up-and-coming scholars. The two panels that I attended on Saturday exemplified the trend.

The first was entitled "Religion, Class, and American Elites." Peter Williams, Distinguished Professor of Comparative Religion and American Studies at Miami University (Ohio), kicked things off with a learned paper on Episcopalianism and the "gospel of art" in the Progressive Era. Then followed two presentations by recent graduates of the history department at Notre Dame. Thomas Rzeznik, now an assistant professor at Seton Hall, revisited the Scott Nearing case, arguing that the economist's infamous confrontation with the trustees of the University of Pennsylvania in 1915 was about far more than academic freedom. The trustees dispensed with Nearing, Rzeznik contended, because his radical ideas challenged the moral and religious framework that helped elite Americans - including U Penn's benefactors - justify their disproportionate wealth. Finally, Timothy Gloege looked at how Henry Parsons Crowell, head of Quaker Oats, became not only a major player within the Moody Bible Institute at the turn of the century but also a key agent in the production of the Fundamentals. Gloege is now revising a fascinating dissertation on fundamentalism's early years, in which he highlights connections to big business, casting the movement not as an anti-modern backlash but instead as the theological handmaiden of emergent consumer capitalism. Overall, the panel left me wondering - as has my own work on Chicago - whether standard histories of this period overstate the significance and reach of the social gospel. More on that in a future post.

The second panel was entitled "Race, Religion, and Civil Rights." David Komline, one of my current colleagues at Notre Dame, delivered a paper examining the work of a German Jesuit who traveled through the United States in the immediate postbellum years, encouraging Germans and African Americans alike to establish their own parishes. Komline went on to complicate white-black binaries by considering the role that concerns about ethnicity played in the emergence of segregated Catholic churches. Karen Johnson, a PhD candidate at the University of Illinois (Chicago), then gave a very compelling talk on Arthur Falls and the roots of Catholic inter-racialism in Depression-era Chicago. I heard Johnson give a paper back in autumn, based on another chapter of what is shaping up to be a very impressive dissertation: her account underscores the power of the hierarchy with respect to racial questions but also highlights extensive and often countervailing activity on the ground throughout the long Civil Rights Movement.

All-in-all, then, a great meeting. The cherry on top: the 80 degree weather that made for a beautiful, windows-down ride back to Chicago on Sunday.

Whose Story is American Religious History?

By Heath Carter

I'm here in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where I'm attending the American Society of Church History's spring meeting, organized around the theme of "Christianity and Migrations." There are any number of interesting panels and I hope to post another update before all is said and done, but for now a brief report on Rachel Wheeler's stimulating plenary address this morning entitled, "Whose Story is American Religious History? The Parallel Lives of Daniel Boone and Joshua, the Mohican." Wheeler is an associate professor of religious studies at IUPUI whose work has come up often on this blog [those interested in reading up on her first book, To Live Upon Hope, might check out fellow blogger Lin Fisher's conversation with her back in 2009].

Her talk today engaged big questions about how we should narrate the story of European-Indian encounter in the Americas, which has ramifications of course for how we tell the story of American religious history. She argued that the life of Joshua, an Indian convert to Moravianism, highlights the difficulties with both triumphalist and revisionist accounts of conflict on the frontier. The problems with triumphalism, a view summed up in Horatio Greenough's mid-nineteenth century sculpture, The Rescue, need not be elaborated here. There is a reason why the statue, an image of which Wheeler incorporated into her talk, was removed from the steps of the U.S. capitol building in the late-1950s.
But Wheeler persuasively showed that Joshua's story also complicates the revisionist narrative, which lacks the categories to see his conversion as anything other than collusion with the oppressor; and lacks, moreover, the flexibility to allow for Moravian missionaries who - unlike some of their Protestant counterparts in the late-18th century - were not virulently anti-Indian but were in fact open to some of the ways that Indian converts made Christianity their own.

In elaborating the fascinating comparison between Boone and Joshua, Wheeler followed themes of migration, war, and conversion. All of these will be central to her next book, a biography of Joshua which will put him belatedly on more religious historians' radar (I confess that before Wheeler's talk I had not heard of him). If her second book makes the same kind of splash as her first, it may be that we'll all soon be required to take what she called the "Joshua test" - do our accounts of American religious history shed light upon the experience of this Mohican-Moravian martyr, or will we continue to relegate those like him to the margins? For the profession's sake, let's root for passing grades for all.

Remembering the Triangle Fire

By Heath Carter

Tomorrow marks the 100th anniversary of NYC's Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, a sweatshop blaze that consumed the lives of nearly 150 women in what still stands as one of the nation's worst industrial disasters. Interest in this solemn occasion has only been intensified by the current controversies involving unionization and collective bargaining, which have been discussed at some length on this blog and around the web.

Many of the women who died were Jewish, and New York's Jewish community has taken a leading role in the public remembering. This Sunday, for example, several groups are sponsoring a procession in which 146 persons, one for each of the victims, will march from the site of the fire to the Eldridge Street Synagogue. For more on that event, you can peruse The Triangle Walk's blog.

If you are interested in reading a brief history of the fire, as well as finding out about some of the other commemorative events happening around the nation this weekend, you might check out WNYC's site as well as the Labor and Working-Class History Association's (you have to scroll down a little ways on the latter).

Religion and Labor Protest in Wisconsin

By Heath Carter

For those who have been following the labor situation in Wisconsin, there's an interesting report in today's Guardian entitled, "Finding Faith with Wisconsin's Pro-Worker Protesters." The author, Becky Garrison, cites a number of key religious leaders who have come out in vocal support of public-sector unions and goes on to cite a Reuter's report that the Tea Party contingent in the streets pales in comparison to the pro-labor forces. She concludes, "the visible lack of support for the Freedom Rally held on Saturday, 19 February in support of Walker sent a strong signal that the Tea Party may indeed be all sound and fury. But in the end, they signify nothing."

There is certainly some evidence to support Garrison's view. The Archbishop of Milwaukee, Jerome E Listecki, has issued a statement of opposition to the pending legislation. And so have a broad spectrum of other religious leaders in Madison, including for example the Church Council at First United Methodist, the Senior Minister at First Congregational UCC in Madison, and the Rabbi at Temple Beth El.

The diverse array of religious leaders that have mobilized against Governor Scott Walker's attempt to end public-sector collective bargaining in Wisconsin bespeaks a sea change in the relationship between religion and labor since the era that I spend much of my time in, 1865-1914. My research on this earlier period suggests that, to the extent there has been attitudinal transformation, we can attribute it in part to the agitation of Gilded Age and Progressive Era workers. Their movement was political in the broadest sense - encompassing not only fights for just wages and hours but also campaigns to reform religious authorities and institutions that allied themselves with capital.

All this being said, I think Garrison's Guardian piece far too sunny. She cites but too quickly moves on from Julie Ingersoll's sobering post over at Religion Dispatches. Moreover, in so breezily downplaying the Tea Party's reach Garrison seems to forget that, just three months ago, the state of Wisconsin elected Scott Walker to be its governor.

To have a fuller sense of the relationship between religion and labor in present-day Wisconsin one would need to pay close attention to the rhetoric that everyday people are using on both sides of the debate - who is marshaling religious language and arguments to support their view, and to what effect? (It would be interesting, for example, to study the language on signs that demonstrators on both sides are carrying). In addition, one would need to know more about what happens this weekend, in synagogues and churches around the state: will rabbis, priests, and ministers broach the labor dispute, and if so, what notes will they strike? Most interesting to me - and most difficult to recover - are the conversations that will happen over meals following those religious services: in the restaurants and kitchens where ordinary people will debate the meaning of religion for economic life. It is in those places and amongst those people that lasting change begins.

In the Beginning...What?

by Heath Carter

For the second spring in a row, I am teaching "History of Religion in the United States" at Loyola University Chicago. The class meets once a week on Thursdays from 4:15-6:45pm, meaning that I am working against not only short attention spans but also serious hunger pains and wish-it-was-Friday already syndrome.

Nevertheless, things got off to a promising start yesterday. I gave a lecture that focused on life in Pueblo New Mexico on the eve of Spanish arrival, the experience of conquest, the establishment of Franciscan doctrinas, the possibilities of resistance, etc (based mostly off of Ramon Gutierrez's When Jesus Came, The Corn Mothers Went Away (1991)). We followed that up with a discussion of Lauren Maffly-Kipp's essay, "Eastward, Ho! American Religion from the Perspective of the Pacific Rim," which can be found in Retelling U.S. Religious History (1997), edited by Thomas Tweed (I imagine most readers know of this book already, but for those who don't, it's full of provocative essays, perfect for stirring up conversation in class). You could see the wheels turning as students struggled to re-imagine American religious history outside the trope of westward expansion, which is so pervasive in high school history classrooms.

And I will admit, often in mine. While I am committed to starting somewhere other than aboard the Arbella (we get there toward the end of week 2) and was generally very pleased with the conversation yesterday, I haven't yet figured out how to weave this initial class meeting seamlessly into the rest of the course. This is mainly because I go on to foreground the nation. By dealing extensively with themes of race, class, and gender I try to move beyond the confines of older grand narratives, with their "confessional pitfalls," to borrow Maffly-Kipp's phrase. But in exploring questions about the way religion has historically shaped - and been shaped by - national political and economic currents, I do end up spending a lot of time on Christianity (both Catholic and Protestant). In this way my approach is certainly more traditional.

All this brings me to a question: where do others begin when teaching the American religious history survey? Many of the contributors to this site have participated at one time or another in IUPUI's seminar for young scholars in American religion, which you can learn more about here. Over the past twenty years this program has produced a treasure trove of syllabi for courses in American religious history, which are invaluably cataloged on the same site. For those of you who have posted syllabi there in years past, do you still begin your courses the same way? Or have you changed things up as you've gone along?