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Acknowledgments             a range of people in each of them. It began as a dissertation at Carnegie Mellon University, where a concentration of extraordinary social historians had joined to form an exhilarating environment for successive cohorts of graduate students . Peter Stearns, Mike Weber, Anne Rose, Joe Trotter, Kate Lynch, and especially John and Judy Modell pushed and guided me to examine the past in ways I had not considered. Though none of them focused on American Catholics in their work, they encouraged my interests and supported my efforts to approach the study from a social history perspective. John Modell especially deserves special thanks for the influence he had on the project and on my work generally. His infectious enthusiasm and unflagging intellectual energy made even the slightest progress seem monumental.He was the consummate dissertation director,whose gentle prodding and generous example made the difficult work enjoyable. A number of others were also instrumental in my work at this phase. Fr. Edward McSweeney, then the archivist at the Historical Archives of the Diocese of Pittsburgh, proved to be a welcoming and generous host. He gave wide access to materials under his control and offered regular support and interest in the project. Jackie McElligott, the Diocesan Archives secretary, proved a wonderful conversationalist on the long afternoons spent at the archives. Fr. Carl Hoegerl of the Redemptorist Provincial Archives,Baltimore Province,opened his holdings for two separate visits to the Brooklyn holdings. Fr. Eric Hoog, C.Ss.R. from Saint Philomena graciously afforded free access to the parish records, as did Fr. Kenneth White at Saint Thomas More parish and Fr. John Jendzura of Immaculate Heart of Mary parish. The staffs at the Archives of Industrial Society at the University of Pittsburgh and the Pennsylvania Room of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh were very helpful. The Institute for the Advanced Study of Religion at the University of Chicago very generously awarded me a dissertation xiii fellowship as part of their Congregational History Project. I want to thank James W. Lewis and James P. Wind especially for this. The second phase of this study took place during a long stretch of time after I had finished the dissertation. I explored areas that I knew merited more research and analysis in my efforts to expand the study. My greatest joy during this time was the time spent collaborating on short pieces with my brother Joseph Kelly, a literary critic at the College of Charleston, whose disciplinary influence can be seen most powerfully in the major revisions of the earliest parts of the work.We coauthored three articles in these years that melded the social history and new historicist literary critical approaches to studying the past. Two of those studies further developed research on American Catholics and helped to improve the book you hold in your hand. I absolve Joe from any blame for the less than refined way I have incorporated literary critical methods in this work. My enthusiasm for the approach exceeds my skill in its use. The Center for Religion and American Culture at Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis sponsored a conference in October  at which I first presented material on Holy Name Society’s outdoor eucharistic rally. R. Stephen Warner provided perceptive and supportive commentary that helped to guide my further work in this area. Peter Stearns deserves special mention here as well. He very graciously published some of my further work in the Journal of Social History during these years, and in so doing sustained my hopes that this was a reasonable pursuit. He has consistently supported my efforts to develop new approaches, was instrumental in my finding the academic employment that made continued work possible,and proved especially supportive in my efforts to enter the third phase of this work. Long after he owed any obligation to a former student, he continued to extend himself on my behalf. Despite the support that various folks offered in the years after I completed the dissertation, it began to look as though I might never complete the book project.A fifteen-month stint as a college administrator killed the project’s momentum at a critical phase, and my return to teaching at Saint Vincent College demanded so much time in the classroom that I began to despair of completing such a large project. But the study entered its third phase when, in what appeared to me to be divine intervention...

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