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2 - The Immigrant Church, 1820–1908

from Part I - Historical Overview

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 May 2021

By
Steven M. Avella
Edited by
Margaret M. McGuinness  and
Thomas F. Rzeznik
Margaret M. McGuinness
Affiliation:
La Salle University, Philadelphia
Thomas F. Rzeznik
Affiliation:
Seton Hall University, New Jersey
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Summary

Between the first decades of the nineteenth century and the dawn of the twentieth, the numbers of US Catholics grew from 200,000 to more than 14 million. This growth was made possible by an increasing birth rate but also successive waves of immigration, predominantly from Europe. During this era, US Catholics developed a dense network of imposing and influential institutions: cathedrals (some of surpassing architectural elegance), parish churches, and various types of schools, orphanages, hospitals, convents, monasteries, and seminaries. Even in places where Catholics were a minority or whose Catholic populations grew slowly, Catholic enclaves often flourished.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Companion to American Catholicism , pp. 31 - 47
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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References

Further Reading

Davis, Cyprian. The History of Black Catholics in the United States. New York: Crossroad Publishing, 1993.Google Scholar
Dolan, Jay P. The Immigrant Church: New York’s Irish and German Catholics. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983.Google Scholar
Gjerde, John ed. by Kang, S. Deborah. Catholicism and the Shaping of Nineteenth Century America. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012.Google Scholar
Gleason, Philip. The Conservative Reformers: German American Catholics and the Social Order. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1968.Google Scholar
McAvoy, Thomas T. The Great Crisis in American Catholic History, 1895–1900. Chicago: H. Regnery, 1957.Google Scholar
McGreevy, John T. Catholicism and American Freedom: A History. New York: W. W. Norton, 2003.Google Scholar
O’Brien, David J. Isaac Hecker: An American Catholic. New York: Paulist Press, 1992.Google Scholar
Orsi, Robert Anthony. The Madonna of 115th Street: Faith and Community in Italian Harlem, 1880–1950. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985.Google Scholar

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