Considerate portion[s]: Problematizing the religious ecology of early national Philadelphia, 1827--1845

An emphasis on Protestant-Catholic contact in the early national period leads to a more nuanced view of the relationship between the two communities. This has wide-reaching significance for American religious history, Catholic history, and the history of the early national period in general. The traditional models of Protestant unity betray not only scholars' individual commitments, but also a tacit faith in evangelical Protestantism's providential role and Catholicism's homogeneity. Until recently, scholars have rarely examined the Protestant and Catholic communities side by side, and when they have, their analyses have been based either on a conflict model or a reading of Catholics as outsiders. What is needed is a sustained analysis of religion in American history in which Catholics play a central role.;My approach is based on two propositions: first, that by examining sources that have not been looked at before, a different picture of religion in early national Philadelphia will emerge; and second, that examining interactions among a range of traditions will yield a richer narrative of the lived religious experience of the people. Thus I am relying on the newer approaches to American religious history and Catholic history as well as the general interdisciplinarity of Religious Studies to position Catholics inside the broader history of the early and mid-nineteenth century. I look at Protestants and Catholics together and examine the communities as part of a whole ecology. By abandoning the historiographical model which views Protestants and Catholics separately---and views Catholics as the outsider---I will illuminate the depth and breadth of interconnections---both hostile and affable---between them.;My dissertation is structured around three specific episodes of contact between Protestants and Catholics: first, the conflict that arose over the strategies of the evangelical American Sunday School Union, second, the relationships that developed at Saint John the Evangelist Catholic Church, and third, the anti-Catholic Bible Riots of 1844.