Catholic persuasion: power and prestige in early American civil life

Abstract

Most Americans are familiar with histories of antebellum nativism and anti-Catholicism, but “Catholic Persuasion: Power and Prestige in Early American Civil Life,” offers a new narrative: the story of how the Revolution and the early republic created American Catholics by unleashing the forces that established them as Americans. By exploring Catholics’ ability to develop political, ideological, and cultural credibility through a concept I call political aesthetics, this dissertation explains how they secured prominence in the public sphere and civil society. Early American Catholics became culture sculptors, drawing together ideology and expression to join immediately in the mutual construction of American political culture. As Catholics honed their skills during the early national period, they won hearts and minds, demonstrating their political and cultural belonging. But success bred contempt, and the ironies of success lie at the heart of this history. As Catholics contributed to and mastered the American political and persuasive pose to secure their participation in civil life, their rising stature drew the ire of rivals. It is a history for which there is no historiography, an extraordinary moment in time that has been left out of our collective memory and national narrative. Not only was this world possible, but it existed.