Loyola University Chicago Loyola eCommons Dissertations Theses and Dissertations 1995 What Parish Are You From?: A Chicago Irish Community and Race Relations Eileen M. McMahon Loyola University Chicago Follow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss Part of the Nursing Commons Recommended Citation McMahon, Eileen M., "What Parish Are You From?: A Chicago Irish Community and Race Relations" (1995). Dissertations. 2761. https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss/2761 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Loyola eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Loyola eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. Copyright © 1995 Eileen M. McMahon What Parish Are You From? A Study of the Chicago Irish Parish Community and Race Relations 1916-1970 by Eileen M. McMahon A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Loyola University of Chicago in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy May 1989 For my Father, Joseph A. McMahon In Memory ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS There are many people I am indebted to in helping me formulate and execute this project. First I would like to thank Ellen Skerrett who shared her prodigious knowledge of the Chicago Irish and their parishes and provided me with such a rich subject. Dr. William Galush, my dissertation director, has the rare gift of always being encouraging even when being critical. I am very grateful for his thoroughness, and his suggestions helped make this a better dissertation. I would also like to thank the rest of my committee, Dr. Lewis Erenberg and Dr. Kathleen Mccourt, for their help and encouragement. Several people assisted me in the research phase of this work. Archie Motley and the staff at the Chicago Historical Society and J'ohn Treanor and his staff at the Archdiocese of Chicago Archives were very helpful in making their collections available to me. Sister Toman at the Sinsinawa Dominican Archives provided gracious assistance with their records. Special thanks are due to Msgr. J'ohn J'. Egan for making his personal papers readily available to me. I also wish to thank the staffs at the Chicago Municipal Reference Library, Northwestern University's Deering Library, Mundelein College Resource Learning Center, De Paul University Library, the Reqenstein Library of the University of Chicago, and Loyola University of Chicago's Cudahy Library. Great thanks are reserved for Rev. Michael iii Pfleger, pastor of St. Sabina Church, his very gracious assistant, Ann Gaskin, and the rest of the staff for opening their records to me and for their warm hospitality. Without their generosity this project could never have been completed. I am also indebted to all the people whose lives intersected with St. Sabina's and were willing to share that with me. Projects such as a dissertation are also reliant on financial assistance. The Graduate School of Loyola Universtiy faciliated my work through the granting of a University Fellowship for the 1985-1986 academic year. Finally, I am especially grateful to my husband, Ted Karamanski, for his untiring support and encouragement. His faith in my ability sustained me during the bleaker moments of this undertaking. iv VITA The author, Eileen M. McMahon, is the daughter of 3oseph and Mary Kay McMahon. She was born February 7, 1957 in Chicago, Illinois. She attended grade school at St. Linus Parish School in Oak Lawn, Illinois. In 1971 she entered Mother McAuley High School in Chicago and finished in 1975 at New Berlin High School in Wisconsin. In September 1975 she entered the University of Wisconsin --Madison. Two and a half years later she enrolled in Loyola University of Chicago and in 1979 received the degree ot Bachelor ot Arts, with a major in sociology. That summer she attended the University College, Cork, Ireland Irish Studies Summer School. The remainder of the year she was a VISTA volunteer with the Illinois Public Action Council. In September of 1980 she entered graduate school at Loyola University of Chicago in history. She began her services as a research assistant and two years later as a teaching assistant. In 1985 she was awarded a University Fellowship. Currently, she is a lecturer of history at Loyola. V TABLE OF CONTENTS Page DEDICATION .... ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . iii VITA ... V CONTENT OF APPENDICES .. viii Chapter I. THE IRISH ON CHICAGO'S SOUTHSIDE: AN HISTORICAL BACKGROUND . 1 II. A PARISH FOUNDED ON A PRAIRIE .. 35 III. "I'M FROM SABINA'S" . 62 Parish Loyalty ............... 66 Building St. Sabina's ........... 78 St. Sabina's Relations with Local Protestants 81 St. Sabina and the Great Depression. 83 Parish Loyalty. 87 Devotions at St. Sabina. 93 Parish Societies. .. 98 St. Sabina Parish School . 102 The Parish and the Neighborhood. 109 IV. PARISH IDENTITY AFTER THE WAR: DEVOTIONAL LIFE AND THE SCHOOL . 125 Parish Identification. 129 St. Sabina's Relations with Protestants .. 131 Parish Devotions. .. 133 Parish Societies. .. 140 Catholic Education at St. Sabina. .. 151 St. Sabina Catholics and the World. 157 Conclusion. ....... 159 V. PARISH IDENTITY: A GREAT DAY FOR THE IRISH, RECREATION, AND THE NEIGBORHOOD .... 168 The Community Center ... 177 The Neighborhood ........ 195 Conclusion . .... 199 VI. THE TROUBLES. 209 vi VII. MAKE NO SMALL PLANS . 240 The Creation of the Organization for the Southwest Communities. 256 The Churches and OSC . ... 264 Catholics and Protestants Join Forces. .. 267 st. Sabina's and OSC . 273 OSC's Program . ... 274 Open Occupancy Crisis in OSC .... 280 VIII. WHERE TWO OR THREE ARE GATHERED. 292 IX. CONCLUSION • • 343 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 352 APPENDIX A. 359 APPENDIX B. • 362 vii CONTENTS FOR APPENDICES Page APPENDIX A Maps . 359 I. Chicago's Southside .. 360 II. Auburn-Gresham . 361 APPENDIX B Tables ... 362 I. Top 25 Churches of Baptism of Persons Marries at St. Sabina .......... 363 II. Occupational Profile of Gainful Workers from 10 Years of Age in Auburn-Gresham 1930 .. 364 III. Occupation of St. Sabina Parishioners and Persons of Irish Surnames within the Parish Boundaries. • . 366 IV. Churches in Auburn-Gresham. 367 v. 1928 Election Returns in St. Sabina Precincts. 368 VI. St. Sabina Revenue Collections 368 VII. Catholic and Non-Catholic Marriages in St. Sabina. 369 VIII. Number of Children Attending St. Sabina Grade School . 369 IX. St. Sabina Parish Census. 370 X. School Attendance of Children from St. Sabina 1942-1960. 370 XI. Catholic and Non-Catholic Marriages at St. Sabina 1940-1959 . 371 XII. Top Twenty-Five Parishes of Baptism of Persons Married at St. Sabina 1942-1951. 372 XIII. Top Twenty-Five Parishes of Baptism of Persons Marries at St. Sabina 1952, 1955-1959 .. 373 viii XIV. Parishes of Baptism of First Communicants in St. Sabina 1950-1959 . 374 xv. St. Sabina Contributions of OSC .. 375 XVI. The Aging of Auburn-Gresham. 375 XVII. St. Sabina Parish Enrollment 375 ix CHAPTER I THE IRISH ON CHICAGO'S SOUTHSIDE AN HISTORICAL BACKGROUND The Irish on the Southside of Chicago have traditionally cut a high profile in the city. In Bridgeport they established a political base and network that launched one of the strongest political machines in the country and gave Chicago several of its mayors. Another Southside establishment and tradition is the Chicago White Sox formed by Charles Comiskey, son of an Irish immigrant and city council alderman. In 1910 Comiskey laid a green cornerstone for his new ball park at 35th and Shields for the Irish community he built it in. The Southside Irish are distinguished in having their own literary tradition. Finley Peter Dunne was the first to artistically recreate an urban ethnic neighborhood through the cartoon creation Mr. Dooley, an Irish-American bartender-philosopher on 'Archey' Road in Bridgeport. Mr. Dooley's insights and commentaries on the local Irish working class community were unique manifestations of the realistic American literary tradition of the 1890s. While Dunne focused on the poor and working-class Irish, James T. Farrell, still within the realistic tradition, portrayed 1 2 the southward migration of the Irish and the mixed results of their arrival into the middle class. In 1836, when work began on the Illinois and Michigan canal, an endeavor to connect Lake Michigan with the Mississippi River, the first Irish made their way to Chicago and the Southside. They had gained experience on the Erie canal and followed their national occupation westward when the new canal project began. Once the project was completed in 1848, many Irish stayed on in the area, particularly of the canal's terminus which was rechristened 'Bridgeport' for all the bridges that spanned the South Branch of the Chicago River. 1 Twenty-six percent of the Irish lived in this section, in a section expanding to the southwest as the city. For many decades they made it their chief stronghold. 2 Just as Chicago was making its bid for economic pre­ eminence in the Midwest as the region's transportation center in the 1840s and 1850s, the Great Famine struck Ireland. Many famine refugees escaped to Chicago where they could find jobs. By 1850 the Irish made up twenty percent of the city's population, which made them the largest ethnic group. 3 Employment opportunities in this prairie boom-town matched the Irish need for jobs. The jobs they qualified for were concentrated primarily in the industrial sectors on the Southside. After the completion of the I & M Canal, industries that were no longer desirable in the expanding downtown commercial district moved to the South Branch of the 3 River and the Canal area. The offensive slaughterhouses were drawn to the abundance of water necessary for the slaughtering of livestock and by the proximity to the cattle routes coming into the city.