Holywood: Lights, Cameras, and Catholics in the Age of American Spectacle

Can Catholic culture be American culture? Between 1850 and 1925, as millions of Catholic immigrants arrived on the shores of Protestant America, this old question confronted a new national reality. Advertising, film, theatre, jazz—American popular culture was coming of age in both exuberance and scope. The old order was passing away. Less than a century elapsed between Harper's Weekly publishing Thomas Nast's "The American River Ganges" to 56 million Americans tuning in to watch the televis...