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American Catholic Studies Ewslette AMERICAN CATHOLIC STUDIES EWSLETTE CUSHWA CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF AMERICAN CATHOLICISM Change ofHabit n 1993, Leslie Tentler criti­ tion of the women who supplied the excusable among historians of American cized the lack of historical unpaid labor for the parochial school women. In The Poor Belong to Us: attention paid to women system and a vast network of Catholic Catholic Charities and American Welfare religious. Considering the social service institutions. (1997), Dorothy Brown and Elizabeth vast numbers of educational, Several groundbreaking works have McKeown describe how Catholic charitable, and social service fostered an appreciation for the astonish­ women religious, while caring for institutions created and staffed ing achievements of Catholic women massive numbers of Catholic immi­ by American Catholic nuns, Tender religious in an age when society pre­ grants, contributed mightily to the observed, "Had women under secular or scribed narrowly limited roles for development of the American welfare Protestant auspices compiled this record women. In the 19th century, the con­ system. of achievement, they would today be a vent provided women with unequalled In Say Little, Do Much: Nurses, thoroughly researched population. But opportunities for education and au­ Nuns and Hospitals in the Nineteenth Catholic sisters are not much studied, tonomy; in fact, these studies are occa­ Century (2001), Sioban Nelson lifts what certainly not by women's historians or sionally tinged with wistfulness for a she calls the "veil of invisibility" on even, to any great extent, by historians time when Catholic women had more nursing nuns. Although women reli­ of American Catholicism." opportunities within the Church than gious founded and operated more than Nearly a decade has passed since outside of it. 35 percent of American hospitals, histo­ Tentler thus lamented the invisibility of There is also plenty of evidence to rians of American medicine have largely nuns in U.S. historical scholarship. Since indicate that historical scholarship on ignored them. A strength of Nelson's the publication of Tender's widely cited nuns has helped to remove them from approach is her demonstration of the essay, "On the Margins: The State of a Catholic ghetto. Suellen Hoy, among ways in which the religious commit­ American Catholic History," in the others, has convinced women's histori­ ment of the sisters actually enhanced American Quarterly, historians have made ans to take nuns seriously. The inclusion their effectiveness as social workers; remarkable strides in remedying the of her article on the Sisters of Mercy in hence, she explores the link between the problem. They have produced an im­ the fifth edition of Kerber and DeHart's vocational origins of professional nursing pressive body of scholarship on women Women's America (2000) testifies that and the central importance of religious religious that recognizes the contribu- inattention to nuns is no longer institutions in American social history. In Spirited Lives: HoU! Nuns Shaped Catholic Culture and American Life, 1836- I N s I D E 1920 (1999), Carol K. Coburn and Martha Smith, responding directly to Tender's criticism, observed that per­ Cushwa Center Activities . .... 2-8 ceptions of nuns have been skewed by "powerful and pervasive stereotypes of ............................... Announcements ... 12-13 nuns as otherworldly creatures, naïve Publications: Staging Catholicism 14-16 r see Change of Habit, page 8 (_:ENTER ACTIVITIES Seminar in American blessed the Saints with a centralized concern among Mormon leaders that control over the archival sources of its moving out into the non-Mormon history unmatched among the Christian world has threatened the distinctive _ R�ig!o'!:_��_� � churches of the West. identity of Mormons as a people. On Saturday, September 8, the Cushwa This blessing has been a curse to Shipps' essay, "From Satyr to Saint: Center hosted a discussion ofJan Shipps' non-Mormon or "gentile" historians American Perceptions of the Mormons, book, Sojourner in the Promised Land: who found their requests for access to 1860-1960," best captures the historical Forty Years Among the Mormons (Univer­ the Mormon archives repeatedly denied. dimensions of the opening of Mormon­ sity of Illinois Press, 2000). Shipps, a Shipps, known to some in the field as ism to the broader currents of American senior research associate in the Polis "that Methodist who studies Mormons," culture. The practice of plural marriage Center at Indiana University-Purdue overcame Mormon suspicions of "out­ rendered Mormons a dangerous, alien University at Indianapolis, is professor sider" scholars largely by her ability to "other" within American society of and studies a "insider" emeritus history religious develop sympathetic per­ throughout the first half century of their in the IUPUI School of Liberal Arts. spective in her early writing on the existence. With the abandonment of the to Professor were Saints. the collected in Responding Shipps Still, essays practice at the end of the 19th century, Richard L. Bushman, the Governor Sojourner in the Promised Land present this Mormons began their not-so-long Morris Professor of History at Columbia imaginative leap as a continued struggle. march toward respectability. As University, and Kathleen Neils Conzen, Ironically, as Shipps has tried to get represented in the popular mind by of and chair inside professor history of the Mormonism, Mormon scholars entertainers such as the Osmond family, at the have to achieve a more history department University struggled de­ Mormons appear as the epitome of of Chicago. tached perspective on their own faith squeaky-clean Americanism. At the Part autobiography, part profes­ tradition. same time, the Saints have softened their sional retrospective, Sojourner in the In her accounts of Mormon schol­ view of outsiders, shifting from the : Promised Land collects essays from across ars disciplined for straying outside or­ hostile, Old Testament term "gentiles" the career of a scholar who, for the past thodox Mormon thinking, Shipps shows to the more neutral "rion-Mormons." 40 years, has been one of the leading how her own scholarly dilemmas have Richard Bushman focused his historians of the Church ofJesus Christ increasingly become cultural dilemmas comments on Shipps' treatment of of Latter Day Saints (LOS). Shipps' for the Mormon community at large. developments in 20th-century Mor­ essays cover a broad range of topics, Church officials vetoed a proposed monism. Concurring with her account from relati vely straightforward studies of invitation to the Pulitzer Prize-winning of the gradual entry of Mormons into Mormonism in America, to more theo­ feminist historian Laurel Thatcher the Christian mainstream, Bushman retical reflections on the hiscoriography Ulrich to serve as keynote speaker at an stressed geographic as distinct from of Mormonism and the place of Mor­ important annual Mormon women's general cultural factors. Throughout the monism in the broader historiography conference in 1993. Soon thereafter, 19th century, Mormons constructed of American religion and the American they excommunicated six prominent their peoplehood through the concept of the West. Written at various points over the Mormon scholars, including Shipps' "gathering" of the faithful in a friend Lavina Anderson. location: course of Shipps' career, the essays both close Fielding specific geographic the Great Basin in Utah. anticipate and revise the arguments of These actions reflect the growing As the region proved her best-known work, Mormonism: The incapable of accom­ Story oj a New Religious Tradition. modating the mass of A breakthrough on two fronts, people rushing to the Mormonism was the first full-length join gathering, professional monograph to take Mor­ Mormon leaders monism seriously as a religion in its own urged converts to in their own terms. It was also the first study written stay locations. The by a non-Mormon that benefited from communal access to archival material previously intensely available only to a select few Mormon qualities of Mormon life scholars. A relatively new religion, in Utah could Mormonism has for most of its short not be recreated in history been characterized by intense the "scattering" of geographic concentration and commu­ Mormon communi­ ties nal solidarity in the face of a hostile host across America. culture. This relative social isolation, A minority in most Richard L. Bushman, and Kathleen Neils Coneen Jan Shipps of the along with a theological concern for parts United precise genealogical documentation, has States, Mormons 2 focused their energies on constructing risk: the diminishing distance between of American history. Unwilling to take chapels. According Bushman, this has self-contained religious enclaves and a Mormon beliefs seriously, historians meant the transformation of Mormons rapidly changing wider world make have treated the LDS primarily as a small from a people to a church. historical understanding essential to but significant political pressure group. The expansion of Mormonism communal self-understanding. Shipps warned that the next generation outside the United States in the second Suellen Hoy and several other of historians must resist the temptation half of the 20th century presented even scholars in attendance engaged Shipps to take the current political and eco­ greater challenges to Mormon on the issue of advocacy in the writing nomic success of Mormons in main­ peoplehood. Faced with the decline
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