America's Church

by Thomas A. Tweed

2011 · Oxford University Press

The National Shrine in Washington, DC has been deeply loved, blithely ignored, and passionately criticized. It has been praised as a "dazzling jewel" and dismissed as a "towering Byzantine beach ball." In this intriguing and inventive book, Thomas Tweed shows that the Shrine is also an illuminating site from which to tell the story of twentieth-century Catholicism. He organizes his narrative around six themes that characterize U.S. Catholicism, and he ties these themes to the Shrine's material culture--to images, artifacts, or devotional spaces. Thus he begins with the Basilica's foundation stone, weaving it into a discussion of "brick and mortar" Catholicism, the drive to build institutions. To highlight the Church's inclination to appeal to women, he looks at fund-raising for the Mary Memorial Altar, and he focuses on the Filipino oratory to Our Lady of Antipolo to illustrate the Church's outreach to immigrants. Throughout, he employs painstaking detective work to shine a light on the many facets of American Catholicism reflected in the shrine.

The Saffron Wave

by Thomas Blom Hansen

1999 · Princeton University Press

The text goes on to argue that the Hindu nationalist movement has successfully articulated the anxieties and desires of the large and amorphous Indian middle class. Consequently, the movement has attracted privileged groups fearing encroachment on their dominant positions but also "plebian" and impoversihed groups seeking recognition around a majoritarian rhetoric of cultural pride, order, and national strength.

Bucks County, Pennsylvania Will Abstracts, 1870-1900

by Thomas G. Myers

2009 · Heritage Books

Each entry contains the Register of Wills file number, the Will Book volume and page number where the will was recorded, name of the decedent, place of residence at the time the will was written, date the will was written, occupation if given, names and r

Brother of Mine

by Thomas Christie, Hampton Smith

2011 · Minnesota Historical Society

In 1861, as President Lincoln called for volunteers to defend the Union, Thomas Christie wrote to his father, voicing desires shared by many an enlistee: "I do want to 'see the world,' to get out of the narrow circle in which I have always lived, to 'make a man of myself,' and to have it to say in days to come that I, too, had a part in this great struggle." As it turned out, Thomas had an excellent partner in his quest: his brother William. Both signed on with the First Minnesota Light Artillery, working as "cannoneers," responsible for loading and aiming big guns at the enemy. The First Minnesota saw action in major battles at Shiloh, Corinth, Vicksburg, and Atlanta. But the adventurers also endured the monotony of camp life, the hunger of poor supply lines, and, in William's case, the challenges of enemy capture. The ups and downs, the doubts and thrills are recounted from their differing perspectives in this collection of letters to worried parents, a winsome sister, and a younger brother eager to join in the fight. Their vivid epistles are enhanced by the familial connection of brothers in arms who eventually did see the world--and returned home changed. Hampton Smith is a reference librarian at the Minnesota Historical Society. In his many years at the society, he has developed expertise in Civil War and military history. The Christie letters are a treasured part of MHS collections.