The Look of Catholics: Portrayals in Popular Culture from the Great Depression to the Cold War

The many photo essays and stories about Catholics figured importandy in the Life founder and editor Henry R. Luce's vision ofthe "American Century" - his call, expressed in a 1941 essay, for "a new cultural formation of capitalist leadership, social harmony, and moral virtue intended to ddegitimize the reformist values and ideals of New Deal America" (p. 90). Smirh, an associate professor and director of the graduate program in religious studies at the University of Dayton, has produced rhe definitive scholarly study of Catholic popular culture and its relationship to American cultural, social, and political life.