Neighborhood Religion: Membership and Community in Churches and Secular Voluntary Organizations in Chicago's West Town, 1870-1920

Team Members/Contributors

Scott Cormode Yale University Contact Me

About this dissertation fellowship

This dissertation explicates urban religion at the turn of the twentieth century by focusing on the diversity of religious expression in one Chicago neighborhood. It sets urban religious affiliation in the context of secular voluntary associations that were structurally similar to churches, filled similar social roles and shared many common members. Specifically, it discusses the interaction of churches with fraternal lodges, women’s associations, a settlement house, labor unions and ethnic societies. The dissertation narrows this potentially unwieldy topic by describing a small but diverse geographic area, by investigating a subset of organizational publications selected to highlight statements interpreting social change and by focusing on interpretative questions surrounding membership and community.

Image Title Year Type Contributor(s) Other Info
  Faith and Affiliation: An Urban Religious History of Churches and Secular Voluntarism in Chicago's West Town, 1871-1914 1996 Dissertation Scott Cormode