Kevin Schmiesing – författare

In a period often viewed by historians as one in which Catholics labored in an intellectual ghetto, shut off from mainstream American thought and culture, a number of Catholic intellectuals were thinking seriously about the relationship between Catholicism and its American context. Within the Market Strife examines these views on economic questions in the period 1891-1962, from populism and progressivism to the New Deal and post-World War II conservatism. The book uniquely contributes to the historical understanding of Catholicism — and of American intellectual history more generally — by examining the ways in which Catholic views variously mirrored and interacted with broader American (non-Catholic) views. Within the Market Strife combines Catholic and general American historiographies to discern the ways in which American Catholic economic thought was dependent on factors other than their adherence to the authoritative social teaching of their church, unique political loyalties, personal experience, and economic theories. This book is an essay in intellectual history that will prove itself invaluable to scholars interested in Catholic history, economic history, American religious history, and American intellectual history.

Stories about the past shape not only the way people think about history, but also the way they act in the present. Nowhere is this truer than in the area of religion, which has been and continues to be a powerful motivating force in the lives of billions around the globe. In this volume, Catholicism and Historical Narrative: A Catholic Engagement with Historical Scholarship, contributors explore the way stories are constructed and show how a focus on Catholic figures and concerns challenges common understandings of important historical episodes and eras.Editor Kevin Schmiesing has gathered a distinguished group of scholars who, in various ways, call into question conventional story lines by highlighting previously neglected Catholic ideas and individuals. Built on ample evidence and employing keen insight, each essay is the result of cutting-edge research in fields ranging from historical research on Puritan New England and the antebellum South to the history of abortion to the twentieth-century papacy.Students and scholars of religious history, Catholic historians, and anyone interested in the intersection of religion and history will all find here much to interest—and maybe even surprise—in the chapters' arguments concerning the deficiencies of history's dominant narratives. The volume's focus on the history of Catholics in the United States makes it essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the place of Catholicism in the American story.

Two of the most influential forces in American history are business and religion. Merchants and Ministers weaves the two together in a history of the relationship between businesspeople and Christian clergy. From fur traders and missionaries who explored the interior of the continent to Gilded-Age corporate titans and their clerical confidants to black businessmen and their ministerial collaborators in the Civil Rights movement, Merchants and Ministers tells stories of interactions between businesspeople and clergy from the colonial period to the present. It presents a complex picture of this relationship, highlighting both conflict and cooperation between the two groups. By placing anecdotal detail in the context of general developments in commerce and Christianity, Merchants and Ministers traces the contours of American history and illuminates those contours with the personal stories of businesspeople and clergy.

Awarded third place in pilgrimages/Catholic travel by the Catholic Media Association. Historian Kevin Schmiesing takes you to more than two-dozen sites and events that symbolize and embody America’s rich and sometimes tumultuous Catholic past, including the Santa Fe Trail, Gettysburg, and the Bourbon Trail. You’ll also meet both famous and infamous Catholics—including Augustus Tolton, Dr. Samuel Mudd, and Frances Cabrini—who impacted our nation’s history.

The idea for A Catholic Pilgrimage through American History came from Schmiesing’s mother, he says. She turned every childhood vacation into a pilgrimage, purposely inserting religious sites into the family’s journey to places such as Niagara Falls, Washington, DC, or Myrtle Beach.

Catholics have been part of the American experiment since the beginning—in founding the colonies and expanding the west, building education and health care systems, abolishing slavery, fighting on the front lines, and advancing science, technology, and space exploration. Each of the twenty-seven sites on Schmiesing’s virtual itinerary—including, the Washington Monument, Wounded Knee Creek, the University of Notre Dame, and Mission San Diego de Alcalá—transports you to a significant time in US history and connects the dots to our Catholic heritage. You will meet notable Catholics such as John F. Kennedy, Black Elk, and Katharine Drexel, and learn more about their contributions to history.

You will explore the various and sometimes conflicting roles Catholics have played in key periods and events through the stories of shrines, memorials, and other historic places including:

the Catholic Plymouth Rock—St. Mary’s City, Maryland; the Bourbon Trail—Church of St. Thomas, Bardstown, Kentucky; the Pope’s Stone—the Washington Monument in the District of Columbia; a Catholic mission and a Native American tragedy: Wounded Knee Creek, South Dakota; and the home of the first Black priest—the churches of Quincy, Illinois.