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Global Problems, Parochial Concerns: Urban Catholics, New Deal Politics, and the Crises of the 1930s

Kennedy, Brian Kilmartin
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1269234024

Abstract Details

2010, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, History.
In recent years, historians have increasingly paid attention to the importance of religious identity in twentieth-century American society and politics. This dissertation contributes to that growing body of work by studying the American Catholic response to the domestic and international upheavals of the 1930s. Fusing international, national, and local concerns with the Church’s teachings on the need for social justice, American Catholics promoted a complicated set of political ideas. In doing so, they helped to propel Franklin Roosevelt to four terms in the White House while simultaneously creating deep fissures within the New Deal coalition, invigorating isolationism, and laying the foundation for the postwar conservative revival. This study looks at Catholics in three major urban areas – Boston, Detroit, and San Francisco – during the 1930s. Arguing for a comprehensive approach to the study of politics, this dissertation demonstrates the ways in which religious identities shaped Americans’ understanding of international events and the ways in which developments abroad affected perceptions of local and national political developments. I attempted to recapture the pivotal debates of the era, Catholic reaction to and participation in those debates, and the discourse that developed in the Catholic communities of the three cities studied. The papers of prominent Catholics, politicians, and labor leaders from the period were consulted, as were newspapers, both Catholic and secular. The resulting study contributes to our understanding of American Catholicism, twentieth-century American politics, and American foreign relations.
Kevin Boyle, PhD (Advisor)
Judy Wu, PhD (Committee Member)
Peter Hahn, PhD (Committee Member)
308 p.
History
Catholics; New Deal; liberalism; conservatism; anticommunism; anti-communism; 1930s; isolationism; Charles Coughlin; Franklin Roosevelt; religious identity

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Kennedy, B. K. (2010). Global Problems, Parochial Concerns: Urban Catholics, New Deal Politics, and the Crises of the 1930s [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1269234024

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Kennedy, Brian. Global Problems, Parochial Concerns: Urban Catholics, New Deal Politics, and the Crises of the 1930s. 2010. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1269234024.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Kennedy, Brian. "Global Problems, Parochial Concerns: Urban Catholics, New Deal Politics, and the Crises of the 1930s." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2010. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1269234024

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

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This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.