Union Made: Working People and the Rise of Social Christianity in Chicago

297 Pages·2015·8.692 MB·English

by  Heath W. Carter

Union Made

Union Made
Working People and the Rise of
Social Christianity in Chicago
z
HEATH W. CARTER
1
1
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Carter, Heath W.
Union made : working people and the rise of social Christianity in Chicago /
Heath W. Carter.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978–0–19–938595–9 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Labor unions—Religious aspects—
Christianity. 2. Labor unions—Illinois—Chicago—History. 3. Labor movement—
Religious aspects—Christianity. 4. Labor movement—Illinois—Chicago—History.
5. Christian sociology—Illinois—Chicago—History. I. Title.
HD6338.2.U52C553 2014
261.09773'11—dc23
2015000066
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
For Alan Bloom

Contents
Acknowledgments  ix
Introduction  1
1. “Is the Laborer Worthy of His Hire?” Christianity
and Class in Antebellum Chicago  9
2. “Undefiled Christianity”: The Rise of a
Working-Class Social Gospel  28
3. “It Pays to Go to Church”: Ministers, “the Mob,”
and the Scramble for Working-Class Souls  49
4. “With the Prophets of Old”: Working People’s
Challenge to the Gilded Age Church  73
5. “The Divorce between Labor and the Church”:  Working
People Strike Out on Their Own in 1894 Chicago  97
6. “To Christianize Christianity”: Labor on the Move
in Turn-of-the-Century Chicago  129
7. “Social Christianity Becomes Official”:  The Rise
of a Middle-Class Social Gospel  150
Epilogue  170
Notes  183
Bibliography  251
Index  269

Acknowledgments
i could not have completed this book without funding from a vari-
ety of institutions. I am deeply grateful for support from the History
Department and Graduate School at the University of Notre Dame; the
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; the Charlotte W. Newcombe Foundation;
and the Creative Work and Research Committee, Provost’s Office, and
College of Arts and Sciences at Valparaiso University. A grant from Notre
Dame’s Institute for the Study of the Liberal Arts went directly to the
hire of five translators—Ian Rinehart, Jessica Szafron, Alex Meyer, Joela
Zeller, and Stina Bäckström—whose able work opened an illuminating
window into Chicago’s vast foreign-language periodical literature.
My research benefited immeasurably from the resourcefulness of a
number of archivists, librarians, and curators, including: Martha Briggs
and Katie McMahon at the Newberry Library; Catherine Bruck at the Illinois
Institute of Technology; Julie A. Satzik and Peggy Lavelle at the Archives
and Records Center of the Archdiocese of Chicago; Elaine S. Caldbeck at
Garrett-Evangelical & Seabury-Western Theological Seminaries; Richard
Harms and Lugene Schemper at Calvin College; John Hoffman at the
University of Illinois; James Holley at the International Brotherhood
of Boilermakers; Eddie L. Knox, Jr., at Pullman Presbyterian Church
(Chicago); Kevin Leonard at the United Methodist Church’s Northern
Illinois Conference Archives; Frank Levi at St. Andrew’s Anglican
Church (Tinley Park, Illinois); Patrick Gorman at the Lee County (Illinois)
Historical Society; Dianne Luhmann at the First Presbyterian Church
(Chicago); Ruth Tonkiss Cameron at Union Theological Seminary’s Burke
Library Archives; and Frances Bristol and Dale Patterson at the United
Methodist Church’s General Commission on Archives and History.
I logged hundreds of hours in the Research Center at the Chicago History
Museum and am thankful for its entire staff. I accrued especially large