Nowhere has social conflict challenged and facilitated thedevelopment of an inclusive American identity than on the streets of New YorkCity and for no group did this quest for inclusion burn brighter than in thehearts and actions of New York City’s Catholics. The tour will address the role of Catholicsin the social and immigrant history of New York City with an emphasis on thehistory the Lower East Side and the former Five Points.
While being the birthplace of America’s firstnative born humanitarian saints, Elizabeth Ann Seton and Mother Cabrini, it wasalso the ground where Bishop “Dagger John” Hughes and the Ancient Order ofHibernians fought for immigrant rights and defended Catholic churches fromnativist violence. The birth of theCatholic Parochial school, which provoked much of the anti-Catholic prejudiceof the mid-nineteenth century, was also witnessed in our city. The first established ethnic parishes will bediscussed in contest of the wider immigrant experience of the area.
Important historical incidents such as the1863 Draft Riots and the 1871 Orange Riots will also be addressed on thetour. The tour will focus on thepolitical and intellectual legacies of New York Catholics to include: the status of Catholics in the colonialperiod; the Tammany Hall political machine; and the Catholic responses toslavery and anti-slavery movements. Finally,the social teaching of the Church (Rerum Novarum) will be viewed in context ofthe great 1914 Cooper Union debatebetween Father John Ryan and Socialist Party leader Morris Hillquit and theestablishment of the Catholic Worker Movement under Dorothy Day.
