If”. ‘ "(M9 Wrns’. J34?!" ‘ 5: ‘3- .1 ha“ ...I. 5-. ;. $3,. ;,t~';’r:-Zs'»c..‘- ‘1‘! ,. mi ’1 LIIII'.LE :3}: ‘3 I' :1" 23'- .3: I.[ II- 3'. L I I" 33"!»- I. I‘Jpl IJI3't-‘,""' '“3 "3:“. L ’I‘ :A‘ I U "£1131: {hail .119," 13-" 3 "~ .33. "1§"':Z‘:92 fikn’E‘iu {W Wmifi' M. 1;. . I ‘P- J3 \H U ll '3“... f .I'; n“ 523% #331“! 33%va ._I|3 tin; .. :3 If U gks. IrA-k 3'1): ‘3‘ “I‘I-w [.1 0' 31.3 M I: 33.3%? 31.9.,‘31': . ... 1,:5 . ‘3 3 Err‘fg:3(h13h’fi;m y'.‘ 2‘32 $‘ ‘h e W» _‘ . ' fi‘“; or at. :5 2.; .5 I'm 'nvl-v; 0" 5 I . . ' . . "-5 ‘ 5‘?" ‘ ~u ’ ...5. O I‘- 1-; } xi'f'écifififi'w‘x' ‘ . . ~9.}$}53._ .4. _~ .lIl ‘Ili‘ .33.;‘L' 'E-v‘ ’IFJ $635”; If - ‘I-t “it fifl‘. VSIONS OF A C I": CHICAGOS CI VISIONS OF A CHRISTIAN CITY: THE POLITICS OF RELIGION AND GENDER IN CHICAGO’S CITY MISSIONS AND PROTESTANT SETTLEMENT HOUSES, 1886-1929 By Mary L. Mapes A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department Of History 1998 Copyright by MARY LYNNE MAPES 1993 ABSTRACT VISIONS OF A CHRISTIAN CITY: THE POLITICS OF RELIGION AND GENDER IN CHICAGO’S CITY MISSIONS AND PROTESTANT SETTLEMENT HOUSES, 1886-1929 By Mary L. Mapes This study examines Protestant civic activism, focusing on the laymen who ran Chicago’s city missions and Protestant clubs, the laywomen who labored in the city’s Protestant settlement houses and institutional churches, and the relations between these men and women as each jockeyed for position, space, and authority in the public life of the city. In it I argue that the public significance and influence of Chicago’s civic-minded Protestant community increased as women became the central actors. Focusing on the years 1886-1929, this study discusses how Chicago’s laymen and laywomen attempted to define and influence the city’s ever-changing public order; how, more specifically, each afiected the city’s contested class and ethnic relations and hierarchies; and finally, how they both tried to justify the role of their organizations to the city’s other competing public voices, namely secular settlement workers and professional social workers. The story this dissertation tells begins in the early 18803 when middle and upper- middle elm Methodist and Congregational laymen responded to Chicago’s rising labor conflict, and the influx of immigrants, by establishing missions in the city’s working- class immigrant neighborhoods. It describes how city missionaries-believing that the processes of becoming “American” and converting to Protestantism were not only intertwined, but inseparable—claimed that they had both a moral and a civic responsibility to shape the civic identities of the city’s newest residents. Armed with an evangelistic men; thax m 13"..." _ :m‘0 I 'i . 504 a can “3.: ode. Th6 Slut; i271: commit} dindei ox Chis-dam city. The 5:. Women began to Cues missionaries prongs; city's many social i115 MIN Salx'au' on. : semen tho“ ltd 1 rhetoric that was imbued with militaristic images, these primarily male city missionaries sought a central place in the then current debates raging about citizenship and public order. The study turns next to the turn of the century when Chicago’s Protestant community divided over the appropriate message and means to be used in building their Christian city. The study describes how many of Chicago’s lay Protestants, especially women, began to question whether the traditional evangelistic message the city missionaries promulgated was sufficient to “Americanize” immigrants and to solve the city’s many social ills. Believing that the amelioration of social ills was as important as individual salvation, these women turned to two new institutions: the Protestant settlement house and the “institutional” church. After examining the process by which these women staked out part of the urban terrain as their own, the study turns to discuss the conflicts which ensued during the 19003, 19105, and 19203 between these Protestant women and the city’s secular settlement leaders and professional social workers, each of whom had their own vision of how best to structure Chicago’s public order. Finally, the study ends with an epilogue in which I provide a brief analysis of the Great Depression, focusing on the development of Chicago’s Community Fund and its impact on Protestant civic voluntarism. “Liz: of 2125 1:533:15 . i I -. 0-. V ‘ Mum?- ‘ )LI'x‘L-‘n ?-3 ‘ AI: and Letters a: 318' n '- . 3 y - o v -, - ~— 3 5M 0. .116 re>3s1:s.. C i .; _‘ - . and 5.13pm Ir. 1 \oh ‘9 “itch to work. The :3: mam HiStor} bike - 4‘1” ' ' “1.40111 maxing to beet The in a‘ o l “116C213; 0‘7.‘ ‘4‘ I‘ . TN!) fee“- 4 «are ha; ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Over the course of my graduate career, and more specifically the researching and writing of this dissertation, I have benefitted from the financial, intellectual, and emotional support provided by numerous individuals and institutions. The College of Arts and Letters at MSU awarded me a research fellowship which enabled me to conduct the bulk of the research and later a writing fellowship which provided me with the time to finish writing. The Newberry Library’s In-Residence fellowship gave me important financial support in addition to providing a congenial and supportive environment in which to work. The financial support I received from the Pew Program in Religion and American History based at Yale University allowed me to spend additional time writing without having to become further indebted to the infamous “Sallie Mae.” The intellectual questions upon which this dissertation is based, and from which it initially grew, date back to the beginning of my graduate program when my interest in religion was first sparked by the seminars I took with David Bailey and my interest in women and gender in the classes I took with Lisa Fine. Since these early years David Bailey has been an important role model, showing me through his example that teaching, researching, and writing are all important to becoming a well-rounded and engaged scholar. IfI can cultivate a small percentage of the enthusiasm he has for teaching, I will consider myself a fortunate scholar. His confidence in me provided important emotional and intellectual support—especially during my first few years in graduate school. Lisa Fine introduced me to women’s history and the history of gender and in so doing forever altered my understanding of history. She has always been a carefiil and critical reader, ‘ 'Y‘\ R 0:3 A. .. a o ‘ . arrows . to Xmas P0233. Fr A ....-a -, "rod :3 oar. tom». :. 3:318:01: x.... to has them here Io: 1 ' 5333301”.- 111115 6227;". Q; .m Willshirc. in; . and prev 4 L133 COHSIT‘JCIL '- 31,”?th “~ "' “ liner trained one 50213} . . , “‘78 th‘CIal In her ., ox -' JC‘C :' improving my work by the comments and suggestions She provides. My greatest debt is to Norman Pollack. From my earliest days as a graduate student he has encouraged me to trod my own course, supporting me as my interests in history evolved through various avenues. His commitment to his historical subjects, and the integrity he possesses, represent the best of this profession. AS I embark on my own career, his independent mind and spirit will always be with me as a reminder of what it means to be a scholar. Numerous scholars and fellow students have read the dissertation and I would like to thank them here for their help. Sam Thomas and Donald Rosenberg both read the dissertation in its entirety and provided helpful comments. Fellow graduate students Steve Wilkshire, Randi Storch, and Susan Stein-Roggenbuck each read several chapters and provided constructive criticism, making it possible to improve the work. When my computer “crashed” one late night close to the end of the writing process, Susan helped me keep my sanity by reinstalling all of my software. At the Conference for the Pew Fellows, Harry Stout commented on chapter two, providing insightful criticism of the material I presented as well as strong support for the project as a whole. Coming fi'om a family of historians-both my parents and two of my three sisters teach history—it is inevitable that my thanks to them are both intellectual and emotional. The love my mom has for teaching convinced me as a young girl that there must be something special in being a teacher. With my father I’ve shared many conversations about history. All three of my sisters have provided me very important intellectual and emotional support, encouraging me in my pursuits. Though it has yet to be seen how many, if any, of my six nieces and nephews will pursue a degree in history, they have in many ways provided me with critical emotional support. My twin sister Kathy who is vi no. I St em a may“ . .. '- 9Yhs 9‘" 0 Sb: 3. .. In, 133:11 Mos ' c.- a 3K1 on. '33:" his also pursuing a Ph.D. in history deserves special mention. She has read every single word of this dissertation several times and has improved it with her thoughtful comments. Most important, she has always believed in me and this project, providing the kind of emotional support that I suspect is somewhat unique to twins. It is to her that I dedicate this dissertation. vii EU 0.: FlC'CRES mom-max GEE. 1 (mm (1723‘ 013mm. 133:» . w mm: _ ._ .1 HOL'SE or 0w: 5 Ixsmmom (25 CHAPTER 3 ‘XIORE MEN FOR R SIXDAY EVEXIX G MOVEMENT. l 9‘15}- ‘5 (WHEN WHOSE CITY IS Iii PROTESTAVT SET] --------------- TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................................ ix INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................ 1 CHAPTER 1 CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP: CITY MISSIONS AND THE AMERICANIZATION QUESTION, 1886-1900 .................................................................................................... 15 CHAPTER 2 A HOUSE OF ONE’S OWN: WOMEN IN THE PROTESTANT SETTLEMENTS AND INSTITUTIONAL CHURCHES, 1886-1920 .................................................................... 70 CHAPTER 3 “MORE MEN FOR RELIGION: MORE RELIGION FOR MEN:”THE CHICAGO SUNDAY EVENING CLUB AND THE MEN AND RELIGION FORWARD MOVEMENT, 1900-1920 ............................................................................................... 125 CHAPTER 4 WHOSE CITY IS THIS?: PROFESSIONAL SOCIAL WORKERS VERSUS PROTESTANT SETTLEMENT AND INSTITUTIONAL CHURCH WOMEN, 1900- 1929 .................................................................................................................................. 170 EPILOGUE ...................................................................................................................... 222 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................ 234 viii EIGZRE l KITCHEN GARDEX HLLREI CL“ S SEWING CL! HGLRES -,.,, . - BUm-N'IGA HU'L'SE .. 11m:- MOTHERS mm B A: 501R}: 5. WDERGARTEN CL F1011}: 6 GELS‘ SPRING CL. E6131}; 7 HCAIIOX BEBLE < LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE 1 KITCHEN GARDEN CLASS AT ASSOCIATION HOUSE ......................................... 122 FIGURE 2 GIRLS’ SEWING CLASS AT ASSOCIATION HOUSE ............................................... 122 FIGURE 3 BOHEMIAN HOUSE ...................................................................................................... 123 FIGURE4 MOTHERS WITH BABIES AT ASSOCIATION HOUSE ............................................ 123 FIGURE 5 KINDERGARTEN CLASS AT BOHEMIAN HOUSE .................................................. 124 FIGURE 6 GIRLS’ SEWING CLASS AT BOHEMIAN HOUSE .................................................... 124 FIGURE 7 VACATION BIBLE SCHOOL AT BOHEMIAN HOUSE ............................................ 124 ix Uhe Perils which it; . . , '. -- 0L | the mam Cliwfs. ... ariallmtocaiized 1r. szr-ingeSL the} are “$33. Imit'mg the C '11.“. ”L311 Josiah Ste Seldofthcir cities. Ye: r355. Chicmimjed PTO“ LL‘IIZIL’I.‘ This chssera: R's - , m an Ch‘QEO scitx INTRODUCTION “Of the Perils which threaten our future, such as socialism, skepticism, the liquor power, the criminal classes, the congestion of wealth, and political corruption, each is enhanced and all are focalized in the city. And here, where moral and Christian forces need to be strongest, they are weakest.” —-Josiah Strong (October 8, 1885) Inviting the Christian public to an interdenominational congress on city evangelism, Josiah Strong outlined the central fears many white native-born Protestants held of their cities. Yet rather than reject the city, Strong called for its evangelization. He urged civic-minded Protestants to pursue their Christian work on the nation’s “urban fi'ontier.” This dissertation examines Protestant civic activism, focusing on the laymen who ran Chicago’s city missions and Protestant clubs, the laywomen who labored in the city’s Protestant settlement houses and institutional churches, and the relations between these men and women as each jockeyed for position, space, and authority in the public life of the city. This study discusses how Chicago’s laymen and laywomen attempted to define and influence the city’s ever-changing public order; how, more specifically, each affected the city’s contested class and ethnic relations and hierarchies; and finally, how they both tried to justify the role of their organizations to the city’s other competing public voices, namely secular settlement leaders and professional social workers. The central argument of this dissertation is that the public significance and influence of Chicago’s Protestant community increased as women became the central actors in the religious urban realm. The story this dissertation tells begins in the mid-18805 when middle and upper v I . It A‘ - p’kx .ll‘le“3>§ SI; .AA meeting to Protes assiomes chime among the city‘s ex Chicago's Preterm: teed in buildmg the Women questioned Promdgated “as 3} IRS My soda} 1 Mtidm “hail-Q: 551115316111th an Stressful}. Med lhtll Wofii Chafing leaders and PTOIessi m W111}: Chicai'x; middle-class Methodist and Congregational laymen responded to Chicago’s rising labor conflict and influx of immigrants by establishing missions in the city’s working-class immigrant neighborhoods. Believing that the processes of becoming “American” and converting to Protestantism were not only intertwined, but inseparable, these city missionaries claimed that they had both a moral and a civic responsibility to proselytize among the city’s expanding immigrant population. At the turn of the century, however, Chicago’s Protestant community divided over the appropriate message and means to be used in building their Christian city. Many of Chicago’s lay Protestants, especially women, questioned whether the traditional evangelistic message which the missionaries promulgated was all that was needed to “Americanize” the immigrants and to solve the city’s many social ills. Believing that the amelioration of social ills was as important as individual salvation, these women turned to two new institutions; the Protestant settlement house and the institutional church. Although these women had, by the 191 Os, successfully staked out part of the urban terrain as their own, they found themselves and their work challenged in the 1910s and 19203 by both the city’s secular settlement house leaders and professional social workers, each of whom had their own vision of how best to structure Chicago’s public order.1 Secular settlement leaders who feared that open 'I should note here that I use the term “secular settlement” to refer to those settlements that did not condone evangelism or which did not include any religious services or programs. I do not mean to imply that the women and men laboring in the secular settlements were not faithful Christians. Most were active Protestant church members who drew inspiration fi'om their faith; however, they did not believe that evangelism was acceptable within the settlement house. For a discussion of the question of religion and the settlement house movement, see chapter 2 of this dissertation. Also, see Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn, Black Neighbors: Race and the Limits of Reform in the American Settlement House Movement, 1890-1945 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993); and Ruth Crocker, Social Work and Social Order: The Settlement Movement in Two Industrial Cities, 1889-1920 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, . 2 ‘ ’ OI C 5113115111 “1‘ 9 .‘ v 9:631 “(riffs “ I10 healexe Free 3.3. [Item histor Coming from vane: men-0:10.10 mes. urb. and anahziag all a: about municipal pe OIWOIB from whj. published books, n ideologicam 15 cc “mum and ea: [than and COmm evangelism was not compatible with the social goals of the settlement, and professional social workers who were committed to the notion that professional social work methods must be separated fi'om Protestant charitable traditions, sought to minimize the influence the above Protestant women wielded in the public life of the city. Urban history is one of the most dynamic subdisciplines of American history. Coming fi'om various perspectives, and bringing with them an equally rich diversity of methodologies, urban historians have written a plethora of books and articles describing and analyzing all aspects of urban life, both public and private. Anyone hoping to learn about municipal politics, immigration, labor, and reform has an almost limitless number of works from which to choose. It would be impossible to list even the most recently published books, numerous as they are.2 However, religion-institutionally, socially, and ideologically—is conspicuously absent fiom most urban histories focusing on the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In a recent forum on “The Place of Religion in Urban and Community Studies,” prominent historians lamented this fact, noting that 1992). 2The works on Chicago alone are, as one might expect, quite numerous. Recent publications include Donald Miller’s City of the Century: The Epic of Chicago and the Making of America (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996). Though lacking the scope and the thoroughness of the still-classic three volume, A History of Chicago (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1937-1957) penned by Bessie Louise Pierce, Miller attempts to grapple with the city as a single entity. Political histories include Robin Einhom, Property Rules: Political Economy in Chicago, 1833-1872 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991); and Karen Sawislak, City Smoldering: Chicagoans and the Great Fire, 1871-1874 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995). Especially popular are the cultural histories of Chicago. Among the best of these recent publications are Carl Smith, Urban Disorder and the Shape of Belief? The Great Fire, The Haymarket Bomb, and the Model Town of Pullman (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1995); and James Gilbert, Perfect Cities: Chicago ’s Utopias of 1893 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991 ). more imitations a: ' 'e’epnent The to: iqeriam have rarel} \ 1mm how “chum widen and as shape mm. suggested landscape to include re city? Though the 10 filming 100 SIOWIyfi' 5e“ 350m '- ' m-thela’8‘er ”83th fig! mlmfio F35 irgwio .on 98 - (I i .1) HQ\~E “9111130 \t religious institutions are seldom viewed as having had any significant impact on urban development. The forum’s participants pointed out regrettably that religious and urban historians have rarely viewed religious institutions as an integral part of the city. By describing how “churches have been important as direct city builders, as urban service providers, and as shapers of civic cultures,” Kathleen Conzen, one of the forum’s participants, suggested ways that scholars can begin to reconceptualize the urban landscape to include religion as part of the city, as helping to construct and define the city.3 Though the forum’s participants expressed concern that urban religious history is growing too slowly—and is more often than not marginalized in the larger historiography-scholarship which takes seriously the role of religion in urban life during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries has over the last decade been expanding and receiving a wide readership.4 In particular, historians have heaped praise on the work 3Kathleen Conzen, “The Place of Religion in Urban and Community Studies.” Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation, Vol. 6 (Summer 1996) p.112. ‘1 should note here that the topic of religion and the city is, of course, not completely new. For the classic works on Protestantism in the city, see Henry May, Churches in Industrial America (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1949); Robert T. Handy, The Social Gospel in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1966); Aaron Abell, The Urban Impact on American Protestantism, 1865-1900 (London: Archon, 1962); and Charles Hopkins, The Rise of the Social Gospel in American Protestantism, 1865-1915 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1940). Numerous works have also been written about Catholicism in the city. Too often, however, these histories isolate Catholicism from the larger public life of the city, allowing historians who are not directly interested in religion to ignore Catholicism as part of the city. This is particularly true of many church histories, or “in-house” publications, which focus primarily on individuals and institutions. For an example, see Caritas Christi Urget Nos: A History of the Ofiices and Institutions of the Archdiocese of Chicago, Chicago Illinois (Archdiocese of Chicago, 1981). However, even mere academic discussions of Catholicism tend to focus on institutions, heeding not nearly enough attention to those institutions within the larger 4 of Robert Orsi. I716 33. i5-3£~1950 119851. To influence popular relig: Harlem John McGree‘ Errozmter with Race :1: other: Figs. the relatic paishes has also been “born are now beg-In: E determined not on}; Viki! religious loyalti: ofmemieth-cmmn. . “am!“ Wed I 1110 ' E 5310115 matters of Robert Orsi, The Madonna of115"’ Street: Faith and Community in Italian Harlem, 1880-1950 (1985). Focusing on devotional practices, Orsi demonstrates the important influence popular religion had on the lives of Italian immigrants, especially women, in Harlem. John McGreevy’s recently published book, Parish Boundaries: the Catholic Encounter with Race in the Twentieth-Century Urban North, which examines, among other things, the relationship between urban ethnic neighborhoods and Catholic national parishes has also been reviewed favorably by urban and religious historians, both of whom are now beginning to understand how the actual construction of urban geography is determined not only by the class, ethnic, and racial identities of urban residents, but by their religious loyalties as well. McGreevy writes with concern that in most discussions of twentieth-century cities, “Religion frequently ends up at the bottom of a list of variables presumed to shape individual identity, as an ethical afterthought to presumably ”5 His excellent book points out the more serious matters of class, gender, and ethnicity. danger of making such an assumption, the danger of not considering religion along with the other categories of identity currently so popular among urban historians. Like McGreevy’s work, Elizabeth Hayes Tumer’s study of Galveston Texas, context of the city. For example, Charles Shanabruch’s well researched and thoughtful discussion of Catholicism in Chicago is in large part an examination of the institutional structure of the church, largely separate fiom the public life of the city. Chicago ’s Catholics: The Evolution of an Identity (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 1981). Though historians, including Leslie Woodcock Tentler, have described the many ways Catholicism was central to city life, providing social services and helping shape working- class activities, religion is usually left out of the most popular and widely discussed histories. Leslie Woodcock Tentler, “On the Margins: The State of American Catholic History,” American Quarterly, Vol. 45 (March 1993). ’John McGreevy, Parish Boundaries: The Catholic Encounter with Race in the Twentieth-Century Urban North (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996) p. 4. 5 Women Culture 8'1 is forcing historians and thoughtful boo}. reim.’ Although ' whining worn-311': Rho sees ehnches i sappirI-g Stone to. p: Galveston shows 2,} much of the city 5 ; Obs53311700 recent ““3" m certa'ml afforded America:- ham-s Women, Culture, and Community: Religion and Reform in Galveston, 1880-1 920 (1997), is forcing historians to reconsider the role of religion in the city. In this well researched and thoughtful book, Turner explores the connections between women, religion, and reform.6 Although Turner is not the first women’s historian to focus on churches in explaining women’s public activism, she is one of the few twentieth-century historians who sees churches as central to urban reform, who sees religion as more than merely a stepping stone to public life.7 Tumer’s research into women’s public activism in Galveston shows that churches and religiously based institutions were at the center of much of the city’s public activity, fi'om poor relief to civic reform. Her work confirms an observation recently made by Elizabeth F ox-Genovese: “It would be no exaggeration to claim that, certainly until the twentieth century and, arguably, through it, religion has afforded American women their most important source of strength, purpose, and identity.”8 The works of Orsi, McGreevy, and Turner, taken as a group, suggest the myriad ways religion was an integral part of the urban landscape of the late nineteenth and early “Among nineteenth-century women’s historians the connection between women, religion, and reform is well documented. See Christine Stansell, City of Women: Sex and Class in New York, 1 789-1860 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1982); Mary P. Ryan, The Cradle of the Middle Class: The Family in Oneida County, New York. I 780- 1 865 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981); and Nancy Hewitt, Women ’s Activism and Social Change: Rochester, New York, 1822-1872 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984). It is interesting to note that even though these historians don’t talk about their books as “religious history,” religion is central to the stories they tell. 7African-American women’s history is one notable exception. For a discussion of African-American women and the church, see Evelyn I-Iigginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women ’s Movement in the Black Baptist Church, [880-] 920 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). 8Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, “Female Experience in American Religion,” Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation, Vol. 5 (Winter 1996) p.16. 6 mentieth centuries. I mfimm‘ world \‘is’ iriorzned both the idet‘ religion is understood ‘. entities of when tesi: Chicago is more exploration of religion i wit twentieth cenr' Le; Cit Few American cit doubling its p0puiation “919861: through the nation‘s Second 13:; igzficant. Chicago E? m life had to Offer I if“ the fits of 187 hi the Itso ISL :1 . “Te Onl refit,“ “‘6 \‘an: to all “'0 13:51: If, T r Ode If: In, 1 (Philadeint' 1' "' “8160:: [a hit - , I i Shot??? of HIIDOIS P Pittm- pUlar RCII ‘ I gttfill I ‘men ”‘ £110! [@1me Cu] I I1. {£1719th Pro! ' I twentieth centuries. They show, among other things, that religion has helped construct immigrants’ world views, reconfigured the spatial geography of neighborhoods, and informed both the ideology and practice of reform and public activism. In these studies, religion is understood to be at the center of the city, affecting the private lives and public activities of urban residents from all classes and ethnic groups.9 Chicago is more than an appropriate place to extend our discussion and exploration of religion in the city because of its prominence during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as the nation’s most tumultuous city, the nation’s quintessential city. Few American cities grew at a faster rate than Chicago, a city which came close to doubling its population every ten years during the last three decades of the nineteenth century largely through the influx of immigrants from Europe. By 1900, Chicago became the nation’s second largest city, and ethnically one of the most diverse. Even more significant, Chicago epitomized for most Americans both the best and the worst that urban life had to offer the nation. Chicago’s rapid rebuilding and commercial growth after the fire of 1871 suggested that the acumen of its business leaders was unprecedented and the resources of its “common” people endless; on the other hand, the fi-equency of 9These are only a few of the most recent works on religion in the city, but they illustrate best the varied ways that religion is central to the larger field of urban history. For other recent works that deal in one way or another with religion in the city, see Ken Fones-Wolf, Trade Union Gospel: Christianity and Labor in Industrial Philadelphia, 1865-1915 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989); Clark Halker, For Democracy, Workers, and God: Labor Song Poems and Labor Protest, 1865-1895 (U rbana: University of Illinois Press, 1991); Kathryn J. Oberdeck, “Labor’s Vicar and the Variety Show: Popular Religion, Popular Theater, and Cultural Class Conflict in Turn of the Century America,” (Ph.D. Dissertation, Yale University, 1991); Kathryn J. Oberdeck, “Religion, Culture, and the Politics of Class: Alexander Irvine’s Mission to Turn-of-the- Century New Haven,” American Quarterly, Vol. 47 (June 1995):236-279; and James W. Lewis, The Protestant Experience in Gary Indiana, 1906-1975: At Home in the City (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1992). 7 Chicago's labor dispu'. Pm Stile OI i894 not only the stabilit) c That Chicago ' 511310 Stud} That 1;: from “rote abouL a CODCCmS‘mB-kes ll \‘1 .m- aieth centuries C m IO Influmce Grier Rt‘gardless of oplmimc that the pi 803 21: mg” Public 0rd Commercial Club. ti Chicago’s labor disputes—the most famous ones being the Haymarket riot of 1886 and the Pullman strike of l894~made many Chicagoans, and Americans more generally, question not only the stability of Chicago but the very viability of urban life itself.'0 That Chicago was the center of so much change and conflict makes it a fruitful city to study. That urban citizens and Americans as a whole self-consciously thought about, wrote about, and debated the place and future of Chicago—and acted upon those concems—makes it vitally important to study. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Chicago was home to hundreds of voluntary organizations, each seeking to influence in one way or another the shape of the city’s ever-changing public order. Regardless of how unstable the city might have seemed, Chicagoans remained optimistic that the particular shape of the city’s public order was something that could be controlled, something that could be molded. Urban citizens hoping to affect the shape of the larger public order flocked to such organizations as Chicago’s Civic Federation, the Commercial Club, the Committee of Fifteen, the City Club and the Woman’s Club, to name just a few. This dissertation extends our understanding of these discussions concerning civic life and public order by focusing on the laymen and laywomen who belonged to Chicago’s civically active Protestant voluntary organizations. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, long after Catholics had become the religious majority in many American cities, including Chicago, Protestant continued to wield significant political, cultural, and social influence. From the works of Henry May, Charles Hopkins, 10For an excellent discussion of perceptions of urban life, see Carl Smith, Urban Disorder and the Shape of Belief. and Robert ligand!)~ “‘5 lofts and organize-1i ELEIITIRS in the mic Iesed Protestant :ga tines Too ofien in n something against «I helped to consrruct ' 5516ng the story of mmpted to claim bi min-“16d to build a ‘ To tell this 51. we“ panic iPaIed i X03055 0f mascuiim IRE ‘hc late Hinete We no “amen. N and Robert Handy we have learned much about how national Protestant denominational bodies and organizations responded to the religious, economic, and social changes occurring in the nation’s cities.“ However, we know surprisingly little about how city- based Protestant organizations and communities helped structure public life in specific cities. Too often in religious history the city is depicted as merely a foil or trope, something against which religious institutions reacted but rarely something which they helped to construct. This dissertation seeks to deepen our understanding of urban religion by telling the story of how a small section of Chicago’s lay Protestant community attempted to claim both religious and civic responsibility for their city, how they attempted to build a “Christian city.” To tell this story requires paying close attention to the different ways men and women participated in the urban realm and how notions of gender affected their activities. Notions of masculinity and femininity helped structure many aspects of American life during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and the Protestant urban endeavor was no exception. Not only did men tend to gravitate to missions and clubs, and women to settlements and institutional churches, but both groups drew on what they understood to be the proper roles of men and women to explain and justify their activism. Equally significant, middle and upper middle-class Protestants’ views of class and ethnicity were also mediated by their notions of gender, notions that were meted in their understanding of Protestant Christianity. As will be shown, the manner in which Protestant laymen and laywomen interacted with Chicago’s diverse working-class population was shaped not "Henry May, Protestant Churches in Industrial America; Charles Hopkins, The Rise of the Social Gospel; and Robert Handy, The Social Gospel in America. 9 only by their Protestant faith and their class standings, but also by their gender. Chicago’s Protestant community faced opposition from the larger secular society as it struggled to find a place for itself in the city. At the most general level, then, this study explores how Chicago’s civic-minded Protestants carved out a space in the nation’s quintessential city, how they participated in the construction of the city’s public life; it also focuses on the conflicts this public activism engendered within the Protestant community and between the Protestant community and the larger society. Chapter one, “Christian Citizenship: City Missions and the Americanization Question, 1886-1900,” begins this investigation of religion in Chicago by examining Chicago’s Congregational and Methodist city missionary societies. I argue that the mostly middle and upper middle-class laymen who joined these societies hoped to use their missions as a vehicle for shaping the civic identities of Chicago’s growing working- class immigrant residents. Armed with an evangelistic rhetoric that was imbued with militaristic images, these male city missionaries sought a central place in the then current debates raging in Chicago about how best to Americanize the immigrants arriving each year from Europe. Focusing on the German and Bohemian populations in particular—the immigrant groups assumed to be the most “radical”—city missionaries gained for their missions important financial and moral support fiom middle and upper middle-class laymen as well as from Chicago’s business elite. Having established a place for their missionary enterprise in the larger public life of the city, these missionaries argued that their evangelistic work was necessary for constructing a stable Christian public order. In chapter two, “A House of One’s Own: Women in the Protestant Settlements and Institutional Churches, 1886-1920,” I discuss the women who labored in the city’s IO immortal churches amped to define ti: social. and chic conce. o'qints aid methods 0.: school classes prayer r sponsored a Ride rang: other things. kinderga: heahh programs. Yet sailed on: by the city Conflict-mafia by 1' and QUEStioned by 5:: Fromm“ Seflemen: “definition Althoug- h», .. institutional churches and Protestant settlement houses. I argue that these women attempted to define the urban realm as a woman’s domain by melding their religious, social, and civic concerns, and by combining the goals of the evangelical mission with the objects and methods of the secular settlement house. In addition to offering Sunday school classes, prayer meetings, and Sunday Vesper services, these Protestant women sponsored a wide range of social and recreational activities and services including, among other things, kindergartens, day nurseries, gymnasiums, industrial schools, and public health programs. Yet because these Protestant women were moving into territory already staked out by the city missions and secular settlements, they were often embroiled in conflict—attacked by male missionaries who feared the expansion of this woman’s domain and questioned by secular settlement leaders who argued that the evangelical focus of the Protestant settlement was not reconcilable with the larger social goals of the settlement institution. Although very little historical attention has been paid to either Chicago’s Protestant settlements or its institutional churches, this dissertation confirms the most recent work by Ruth Crocker and Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn which shows that many of the nation’s smaller, less prominent settlements were openly Protestant institutions whose workers not only refiised to follow, but openly struggled with, the nation’s leading secular settlement leaders.'2 The difi'erent ideas about religion, gender, and urban order that Protestant men and women brought to their religious civic activism, and the conflicts these ideas engendered between them, is the subject of chapter three, “‘More Men For Religion: 12See Ruth Crocker, Social Work and Social Order; and Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn, Black Neighbors. 11 More Religion For Me: lorsard Moyement 1, inches Protestant vs cl all of ohich were deyis: community joined by a imam“ the native he Chicago Sunday Ey- 'yezing locum: series. 1 Movement of19l l-l9] Rifle the Chicago Sm mm 131116 follovn'n 3135211111132 ”“9911 la would Compete “1th Lb 3t IILS’tIlutional Church may Evening Club a mm” religion in CagO'S intro-religim More Religion For Men:’ The Chicago Sunday Evening Club and the Men and Religion Forward Movement, 1900-1920.” From their Protestant settlements and institutional churches, Protestant women offered a wide range of religious-based services and classes, all of which were devised to bind Chicago’s diverse population into one community, a community joined by a shared faith. Concerned that religious urban work had been “feminized,” the native-born upper-middle and upper-class businessmen who established the Chicago Sunday Evening Club in 1908 hoped that through sponsoring a Sunday evening lecture series, and by becoming active in the national Men and Religion Forward Movement of 1911-1912, they would begin the task of masculinizing religion in Chicago. While the Chicago Sunday Evening Club and the Men and Religion Forward Movement attracted large followings, I argue that the men involved in these organizations failed to masculinize religion largely because they failed to offer the kinds of services which would compete with the expansive social and recreational programs the women based in the institutional churches and Protestant settlements offered. That the men in the Chicago Sunday Evening Club and the Men and Religion Forward Movement attempted to masculinize religion in the urban domain shows that gender figured centrally into Chicago’s intra-religious conflicts. Chapter four, “Whose City is This?: Professional Social Workers Versus Protestant Settlement and Institutional Church Women, 1900-1929, discusses how the Protestant women based in the city’s settlements and institutional churches responded to the emergence of social work as a secular profession. During the first three decades of the twentieth century, Chicago’s Protestant settlement and institutional church women played a central place in the city’s emerging social welfare matrix, providing social 12 senices to their “or; between these neigh-r @3316. As social “i Protestant women {0' soeial workers. SL153: religion and the piac nos: of the professio tat here “as no pla n he Protestant setL’ social work Rith the j Eamon in 3 Chris- Eli-Clem SOCIAI “.01 mmmcajl}. services to their working-class immigrant neighbors and serving as intermediaries between these neighbors and the city’s other social welfare organizations, both public and private. As social work became professionalized and secularized in the 19203, these Protestant women found themselves engaged in heated debates with the professional social workers staffing Chicago’s Council of Social Agencies over the proper role of religion, and the place of volunteers, in social service work. I show that even though most of the professional social workers based in the Council of Social Agencies believed that there was no place for religion in urban social service work, the women who labored in the Protestant settlements and institutional churches combined the tools of modern social work with their Christian commitments. As they had reconfigured the settlement institution in a Christian fashion, lay Protestant women imparted Protestant values into modern social work, establishing a Protestant definition of social work. Thematically and methodologically, this study stands at the juncture of religious, urban, and women’s history. For while it places primary emphasis on Christian beliefs and commitments in explaining Chicago’s Protestant civic activism, it also considers how notions of gender, and concerns about class and ethnic diversity, informed the civic activities in which lay Protestants engaged. By so doing, this dissertation demonstrates that the development of Chicago’s Protestant voluntary organizations cannot be understood separate fi'om the larger political, cultural, and economic dynamics of the city, and that, in turn, these dynamics cannot be fully elucidated without considering the role religious organizations played therein. More specifically, this dissertation shows that it is only by breaking down the barriers that usually separate religious history from women’s and urban history that we can understand the ways that religious faith and religious l3 minorities helped ;, communities helped construct what we call the public life of the city. 14 cm’ 5115 On Tuesda} iimelight “hat he. demons tion to cc nablood bath. A; demonstrators and 1 days and weeks fol} most focusing on 11*. Nice gun fire whit fliers? And as the fight Ofchl'cago‘s 1. {Md r’~‘STP