About this Issue
In our lead article, James M. O'Toole (Boston College) recalls the work of the pioneering Jesuit sociologist Joseph Fichter, and demonstrates how the work of sociologists is a rich source for the social history of the Catholic Church in America.
William Issel (San Francisco State University) and Mary Anne Wold (Lowell High School, San Francisco) in our second article present a new and deeper analysis of the scope of Catholic participation in civil rights work in San Francisco from the World War II years to the mid 1960s.
Peter J. Wosh (New York University) in "Missionary Priests and Faithful Parishioners in Southern New Jersey: A Regional Perspective on Nineteenth-Century Catholicism" situates and presents an important document, Father Edmund Q. S. Waldron's manuscript, "Short History of the Condition of the Catholic Church in the Southern Half of New Jersey in 1848."
Jill Grannan and Marie Scatena, both of the Chicago History Museum, write our cover essay "Catholic Chicago: Story of an Exhibit" which gives us background and insight on their very impressive exhibit.
Our periodic collection of recent dissertation abstracts in American Catholic Studies and nine quite interesting book reviews complete the issue. Read on and visit Fichter's description of parish life in New Orleans, civil rights struggles in San Francisco, lonely missionary travels in Southern New Jersey, and finish your trip in Chicago. And don't forget to check the pictures.
We thank our contributors to this issue, and to those of the past year whose work has again brought American Catholic Studies a General Excellence award for Catholic scholarly journals in the 2008 Catholic Press Association competition.
Rodger Van Allen, Co-editor