History of American Religion, 1865 to Present will consider the varieties of American religious experience while keeping in mind the importance of pluralism in the U.S. context.
I wanted to say a few words about Robert Orsi’s treatment of women in The Madonna of 115th Street. He starts off by saying things like “Except for a short period in July, men used the streets to display their power and authority; the exception was, of course, the festa of the Madonna, when women [...]
Robert A. Orsi’s book is a readable and sympathetic discussion of popular devotion which has as its central “character” la Madonna del Carmine herself. I call her a character because even though she does not technically act, as a Father Divine or a Salvation Army worker might, she is both the central emblem of the Italian [...]
“…the entire experience of Mt. Carmel emerged from and referred back to the people’s lives…” (163). Orsi’s analyses of the various meanings of the devotion of Mt. Carmel are filled with sentences like this – sentences that seem to fold back upon themselves. They seemed at first troublingly tautological, but one senses after [...]
In chapters 3, Robert Orsi discusses the impact the Madonna had on Italian immigrants living in Italian Harlem. The Madonna served as the cornerstone of the community. The Madonna was the lifeblood of the community who heard all their petitions and pleas for aid. Orsi also describes festivals the immigrants of Italian Harlem held to [...]
While reading the introduction to the second edition of The Madonna of 115th Street, I found myself experiencing discomfort and unease at many of the same ideas that Robert Orsi struggled with when he was doing research for his book. Is it really history if the resources are found somewhere outside the moldy archive rooms? [...]
Mostly from Chapter 8 and the Epilogue
I have to say that I derived great pleasure from reading this book, and I imagine that Jill Watts must have had an equally good time researching it and writing it. I found myself chuckling throughout, rooting for Father Divine and his followers as their movement grew [...]
These two chapters are focused on Father Divine and his groups encounter with the Sayville Community in Suffolk County. Father Divine’s move to Suffolk County can be attributed to variety of reasons. One reason was opportunistic, as a German-American in Sayville was being harassed due to the World War I created tension between Americans and [...]
For class discussion of the Preface and Chapter 1
When reading Jill Watts’ “God, Harlem, USA” I was constantly reminded of Higginbotham’s “ Righteous Discontent”. Admittedly the narratives of these two books cover different periods, different circumstances and different motives but two common themes run through both of them. First, the need for the African-American community [...]
In chapters 6 and 7, Watts depicts what seemed to be the high point of Father Divine’s influence, which began ironically with him being sentenced to a year in jail, and the judge who sentenced him dying of a heart attack within a few days of the harsh sentencing (98). This is one of several [...]
In chapters 2 and 3 of God, Harlem USA, entitled Nothing But God and Carrying the Message, author Jill Watts desribes the transion that Father Divine experiences in going from a new immigrant in Baltimore, to the influential leader of a small new movement based in Harlem.
Chapter 2 focuses on the first few years of Father Divine’s [...]