Commissioned by the diocese to commemorate its centenary, this is the first book-length study of the history of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Des Moines, Iowa. Formally established in 1911, the Diocese of Des Moines built on the foundations laid by earlier generations of missionaries, religious women, priests, and bishops to provide a gathering point for the scattered Catholic population of southwest Iowa. This book weaves together the various stories of religious and lay members in the forging of a visible religious presence in the region. Influential priests of the diocese included Monsignor Luigi Ligutti, who became a renowned advocate of rural life, and Bishop Maurice Dingman, who took on sometimes controversial social and political issues. In October 1979, the diocese hosted Pope John Paul II for a short but memorable visit, which was the largest religious gathering in Iowa’s history.

A study of the career of the KKK and its appeal in Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Arkansas in the early twentieth century. This is a study of a disturbing phenomenon in American society—the Ku Klux Klan—and that eruption of nativism, racism, and moral authoritarianism during the 1920s in the four states of the Southwest—Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Arkansas—in which the Klan became especially powerful. The hooded order is viewed here as a move by frustrated Americans, through anonymous acts of terror and violence, and later through politics), to halt a changing social order and restore familiar orthodox traditions of morality. Entering the Southwest during the post-World War I period of discontent and disillusion, the Klan spread rapidly over the region and by 1922 its tens of thousands of members had made it a potent force in politics. Charles C. Alexander finds that the Klan in the Southwest, however, functioned more as vigilantes in meting extra-legal punishment to those it deemed moral offenders than as advocates of race and religious prejudice. But the vigilante hysteria vanished almost as suddenly as it had appeared; opposition to its terrorist excesses and its secret politics led to its decline after 1924, when the Klan failed abysmally in most of its political efforts. Especially significant here are the analysis of attitudes which led to this revival of the Klan and the close examination of its internal machinations. “The Ku Klux Klan is not a single phenomenon. It is three different organizations, which sprang up three different times, for three different reasons. Charles Alexander focuses this study—and it’s a good one—on the middle Klan, the so-called Invisible Empire extending from 1915 to 1944, flourishing in the mid-twenties with a membership estimated at 5 million, at one time or another dominating to some degree politically every city in the Southwest. . . . A forthright and definitive account, to be read along with David Chalmers’s recent Hooded Americanism . . . for the complete national picture.” —Kirkus Reviews

A historical and cultural overview, including discussions of present-day racial, conservation, and economic problems.

Winner, 2018 Paul J. Foik Award for Best Book on Catholic History in the American Southwest, presented by the Texas Catholic Historical Society The remarkable history of the Santuario de Chimayó, the church whose world-renowned healing powers have drawn visitors to its steps for centuries. Nestled in a valley at the feet of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of New Mexico, the Santuario de Chimayó has been called the most important Catholic pilgrimage site in America. To experience the Santuario’s miraculous healing dirt, pilgrims and visitors first walk into the cool, adobe church, proceeding up an aisle to the altar with its magnificent crucifix. They then turn left to enter a low-slung room filled with cast-off crutches, a statue of the Santo Niño de Atocha, and photos of thousands of people who have been prayed for in the exact spot they are standing. An adjacent room, stark by contrast, contains little but a hole in the floor, known as the pocito. From this well in the earth, the Santuario’s half a million annual visitors gather handfuls of holy dirt, celebrated for two hundred years for its purported healing properties. The book tells the fascinating stories of the Pueblo and Nuevomexicano Catholic origins of the site and the building of the church, the eventual transfer of the property to the Catholic Archdiocese of Santa Fe, and the modern pilgrimage of believers alongside thousands of tourists. Drawing on extensive archival research as well as fieldwork in Chimayó, Brett Hendrickson examines the claims that various constituencies have made on the Santuario, its stories, dirt, ritual life, commercial value, and aesthetic character. The importance of the story of the Santuario de Chimayó goes well beyond its sacred dirt, to illuminate the role of Southwestern Hispanics and Catholics in American religious history and identity. The healing powers and marvel of the Santuario shine through the pages of Hendrickson’s book, allowing readers of all kinds to feel like they have stepped inside an institution in American and religious history.

This text offers a sweeping view of urban religion in response to the transformations of large cities. Focusing on Chicago, it explores the ways in which religious organizations both reflect and contribute to changes in American pluralism.

Detailed and timely information on accommodations, restaurants, and local attractions highlight these updated travel guides, which feature all-new covers, a dramatic visual design, symbols to indicate budget options, must-see ratings, multi-day itineraries, Smart Travel Tips, helpful bulleted maps, tips on transportation, guidelines for shopping excursions, and other valuable features. Original.

A comprehensive guide to the historic and contemporary indigenous cultures of the American Southwest, intended for college courses and the general reader.

The Old Southwest flourished between 1830 and 1860, but its brand of humor lives on in the writings of Mark Twain, the novels of William Faulkner, the television series The Beverly Hillbillies, the material of comedian Jeff Foxworthy, and even cyberspace, where nonsoutherners can come up to speed on subjects like hickphonics. The first book on its subject, The Enduring Legacy of Old Southwest Humor engages topics ranging from folklore to feminism to the Internet as it pays tribute to a distinctly American comic style that has continued to reinvent itself. The book begins by examining frontier southern humor as manifested in works of Faulkner, Erskine Caldwell, Flannery O’Connor, Eudora Welty, Woody Guthrie, Harry Crews, William Price Fox, Fred Chappell, Barry Hannah, Cormac McCarthy, and African American writers Zora Neale Hurston, Ralph Ellison, Alice Walker, Ishmael Reed, and Yusef Komunyakaa. It then explores southwestern humor’s legacy in popular culture—including comic strips, comedians, and sitcoms—and on the Internet. Many of the trademark themes of modern and contemporary southern wit appeared in stories that circulated in the antebellum Southwest. Often taking the form of tall tales, those stories have served and continue to serve as rich, reusable material for southern writers and entertainers in the twentieth century and beyond. The Enduring Legacy of Old Southwest Humor is an innovative collaboration that delves into jokes about hunting, drinking, boasting, and gambling as it studies, among other things, the styles of comedians Andy Griffith, Dave Gardner, and Justin Wilson. It gives splendid demonstration that through the centuries southern humor has continued to be a powerful tool for disarming hypocrites and opening up sensitive issues for discussion.