Common threads : a cultural history of clothing in American Catholicism
A well-illustrated cultural history of the apparel worn by American Catholics, Sally Dwyer-McNulty's Common threads reveals the transnational origins and homegrown significance of clothing in developing identity, unity, and a sense of respectability for a major religious group that had long struggled for its footing in a Protestant-dominated society often openly hostile to Catholics. Focusing on those who wore the most visually distinct clothes--priests, women religious, and schoolchildren--the story begins in the 1830s, when most American priests were foreign born and wore a variety of clerical styles. Dwyer-McNulty tracks and analyzes changes in Catholic clothing all the way through the twentieth century and into the present, which finds the new Pope Francis choosing to wear plain black shoes rather than ornate red ones.--Back cover
Print Book, English, 2014
1 [edition] View all formats and editions
University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, NC, 2014
xiii, 257 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm
9781469614090, 9781469642239, 9781469614106, 9781469615493, 146961409X, 1469642239, 1469614103, 1469615495
860944069
Introduction. The origins and significance of Catholic clothing in America
The clothes make the man : clerical and liturgical garmenture, 1830s-1930s
Women religious on American soil : adaptation or authority in nineteenth-century America
School uniforms : a new look for Catholic girls
Outfitting the mystical body of Christ : apparel and activism
Tearing at the seams : the clothes no longer fit
Epilogue. Beyond the 1970s