Church and Estate: Religion and Wealth in Industrial-Era Philadelphia

Chapter 3: A Labor “Exceedingly Magnificent”

A Labor “Exceedingly Magnificent” The George W. South Memorial Church of the Advocate has long been regarded as one of Philadelphia’s most architecturally stunning churches (fig. 1). With its soaring nave, ornamented spires, and rows of slender buttresses , the high French Gothic “cathedral in miniature” built between 1887 and 1897 was intended to rival its European counterparts. The church boasts a magnificent array of decorative detail, including a complete set of stained glass windows by the celebrated English firm of Clayton & Bell. Indeed, by 1889, with construction still far from complete, it had already gained recognition as one of the most notable Episcopal churches in the country.1 Erected through the generosity of the wife and daughter of George W. South, one of the city’s leading merchants of the mid-nineteenth century, it served as a memorial to South’s community leadership and religious faith. It was designed with an eye to the possibility of its one day becoming the diocesan cathedral. Although guided by a desire for personal glorification, the South family was also committed to the church’s spiritual mission. Whereas other churches offered in memory of wealthy benefactors were located in fashionable neighborhoods or elite enclaves, the South family decided to build its church in North Philadelphia, the city’s industrial heart, to aid the diocese in its missionary outreach to the working class. They believed that the spiritually transformative power of Gothic church design should be made accessible to people from all walks of life. The history of the Church of the Advocate reveals the power that wealthy donors wielded through their financial and artistic patronage to shape and define the spiritual character, congregational mission, and theological orientation of their religious communities. The vision for the grand church to be both mission and cathedral came not from the diocese or members of the clergy, 3 76 church and estate but from its donors, South’s family. They were the ones who set forth the plan and funded the venture. Those responsibilities they were not equipped to handle they delegated to trusted colleagues, placing oversight and management of the project in the hands of Richard Cook, a family friend and South’s executor, who was himself a wealthy merchant, financier, and leading church benefactor . As chairman of the building committee, Cook was responsible for selecting architect Charles M. Burns to design the church, a man who shared his fondness for the work of John Ruskin and other proponents of preindustrial design and craftsmanship. Cook and Burns were so committed to ecclesiastical authenticity that they skewed the orientation of the church, in defiance of the street grid, to allow the sanctuary to face true east, in keeping with the ancient practice of aligning churches with the rising sun. As a leading trustee, Cook was also instrumental in recruiting a rector sympathetic to the South family’s doctrinal stance, liturgical tastes, and social commitments, one who would be supportive of high churchmanship and liturgical formalism, yet committed to missionary outreach. Through their financial generosity, the Souths and Cook fashioned a church that conformed to their own personal vision of what the Episcopal Church should be—socially, theologically, and aesthetically.2 This relationship between financial patronage and ecclesiastical development in the United States was perhaps never more pronounced than it was Fig. 1 George W. South Memorial Church of the Advocate, Philadelphia. Photo from Moses King, Philadelphia and Notable Philadelphians (New York: M. King, 1902), 33. A Labor “Exceedingly Magnificent” 77 during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. During this time of institutional growth, members of the upper class were able through their benefactions and commissions to build churches that reflected their own social views and theological vision. Working closely with architects and artists who could bring their aesthetic vision to life, they fashioned ecclesiastical spaces that articulated their class tastes and personal sensibilities. Collectively, they helped cultivate a shared religious outlook among members of the industrial-era elite, instilling in them a distinct religious habitus, an internalized set of shared religious subjectivities, which often transcended denominational lines.3 The appropriation of English parish architecture, for instance, helped facilitate class formation among the elite by connecting them culturally to England’s landed gentry. The ability to shape the physical form of their churches endowed the elite with “ecclesiological” influence, through which they were able to physically define the proper relationship between faith, practice, and aesthetics.4...