The latest edition of the quarterly Journal of American History contains articles on the role of New York City religious institutions in the early 20th century and the satire of the anti-war movement in the 1930s.
The issue of the journal, which is based out of IU and published by the Organization of American Historians, was published in June, according to an IU press release. The issue includes book and exhibition reviews as well as several scholarly articles.
Jon Butler, Howard R. Lamar professor emeritus of American studies, history and religious studies at the University of Minnesota, wrote the issue’s cover story “God, Gotham and Modernity” about New York City’s religious institutions. The story included grand cathedrals and storefront churches and left long-lasting legacies on society.
The article is the presidential address he delivered to the OAH in April.
“The religious experience of these New Yorkers suggests that Weber and James bypassed something exceptionally important about the texture, energy and resilience of American religion, at least between the 1880s and the 1920s: that this religious experience was powerfully collective, rooted in joining with others to share ritual, beliefs and practice through a broad array of institutions indispensable to their achievement,” wrote Butler, according to the release.
Also in the issue is an article by Farleigh Dickinson University’s Chris Rasmussen titled “‘This thing has ceased to be a joke’: The Veterans of Future Wars and the Meanings of Political Satire in the 1930s.”
In it, Rasmussen recounts the rise, and subsequent decline, of the World War I satiric anti-war movement, according to the release. The movement was a response to the decision of Congress in 1936 to give early bonuses to veterans of the Great War.
A look at William Worthy, a famous black journalist who ignored the travel ban on Cuba to report on racial progress, is also featured in the issue. The article, written by IU Maurer School of Law associate professor H. Timothy Lovelace Jr., is titled “William Worthy’s Passport: Travel Restrictions and the Cold War Struggle for Civil and Human Rights.”
Worthy was one of more than 200 United States citizens who had violated the travel ban, but the only one prosecuted, according to a synopsis of the article on the OAH website. He was the first U.S. citizen to be convicted of re-entering America without a valid passport.
The article focuses on the arguments Worthy used during his defense in Worthy v. United States.
Two more articles are also featured in the issue. The first, “‘Swarms of Negroes Coming about my Door’: Black Christianity in Early Dutch and English North America” was written by New York University’s Patricia U. Bonomi.
The second was written by Boston University’s Nina Silber and is named “Reunion and Reconciliation, Review and Reconsidered.” It takes another examination on reunification literature that were built on white supremacy after the Civil War.
A full index of the issue can be found on the OAH website.
Kathrine Schulze
