This Far by Faith: Tradition and Change in the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania

Chapter 6: The Gilded Age and Progressive Era, 1865–1910

Bishop Alonzo Potter died in July 1865, while en route to California from Central America. He had been on a trip through the region, attempting to restore his worsening health. Because it took five weeks to return Potter’s body to Philadelphia, it was September before a funeral could be held.1 William Bacon Stevens, now diocesan bishop, conducted services at Christ Church and the interment at Laurel Hill Cemetery. Many of the attendees had also paid respects at Lincoln’s coffin when it lay in state at Independence Hall the previous April. In the space of five months, Philadelphia Episcopalians mourned a president and a bishop. In contrast to what subsequently transpired in the national government, the transition in diocesan leadership, though sad, was smooth. Stevens had been elected assistant bishop to succeed Potter (the term “coadjutor” did not come into use until 1902), had been consecrated in early 1862, and was already handling duties in Potter’s absence, including presiding over the diocesan convention in the spring of 1865. Bishop Stevens presided over a geographically smaller diocese than his predecessors had. After several years of discussion and planning, the portion of the diocese that lay west of the Alleghenies became the Diocese of Pittsburgh in 1865. The enormous physical size of the diocese had always made oversight and visitation difficult, but the growing number of parishes to the west made it increasingly unmanageable. Stevens estimated that he had traveled eight thousand miles between the conventions of 1864 and 1865.2 Six years after this division, the region on the eastern side of the Alleghenies became the Diocese of Central Pennsylvania, with its bishop based in Harrisburg. This move further reduced the geographical size of the Pennsylvania diocese. Finally, with the creation of the Diocese of Bethlehem in the northeastern corner of the state, the Diocese of Philadelphia acquired its current size, encompassing all of Philadelphia, Chester, 6 The Gilded Age and Progressive Era, 1865–1910 ann norton greene the gilded age and progressive era   179 Delaware, and Montgomery counties and part of Bucks County. By 1910, after the creation of the Diocese of Erie in 1910 (now the Diocese of Northwestern Pennsylvania), the state of Pennsylvania would contain five dioceses. Western and urban development caused this process of division to occur across the American East and the upper Midwest. New York first divided in 1839, and again in 1869, to form the dioceses of Albany, central New York, and Long Island; further west, the same process of growth led to the establishment of the Diocese of Fond du Lac in 1875 and the Diocese of Central Illinois in 1877. The changing physical borders of dioceses reflected shifts in less tangible but no less important boundaries in American society between the Civil War and World War I, a period known as the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era. Every aspect of American society altered because of rapid industrialization, and the outlines of the twentieth-century world took shape. Historian Alan Trachtenberg calls this process “the incorporation of America,” because all across society, not just in the business world, there was a trend toward more institutional development, more structure and organization, and new hierarchies of power and influence.3 In the Diocese of Philadelphia and elsewhere, the Episcopal Church tried to mediate the transition between an earlier society that was largely rural, agricultural, atomistic, homogenous, and decentralized , and an emerging society that was urban, industrial, systems-based, heterogeneous, and centralized. It underwent changes as an institution, but as it defined its role in an increasingly complex, secular, urban industrial world, the Episcopal Church became an agent of change as well. *   *   *   *   * The Gilded Age, the Progressive Era, and Victorian America Historians employ these terms to describe stages of late nineteenthand early twentieth-century American history. The “Gilded Age,” a phrase coined by Mark Twain in 1873, refers to the period between the Civil War and the end of the century. With this phrase, Twain contrasted the superficial golden glitter of rapidly accumulating wealth with the dark realities of rampant political corruption and wrenching social and economic problems. The appellation, though not always entirely adequate or accurate, has stuck. Most usefully, the term “Gilded Age” describes a period when Americans experienced the dramatic material and structural transformations brought about by industrial production and business incorporation. 180   this far by faith The Progressive Era early acquired a positive reputation in contrast...