Holywood

by Adrienne Nock Ambrose

Overview

Can Catholic culture be American culture? Between 1850 and 1925, as millions of Catholic immigrants arrived on the shores of Protestant America, this old question confronted a new national reality. Advertising, film, theatre, jazz--American popular culture was coming of age in both exuberance and scope. The old order was passing away. Less than a century elapsed between Harper's Weekly publishing Thomas Nast's "The American River Ganges" to 56 million Americans tuning in to watch the televised spectacle of Jackie Kennedy's White House. How? 

Although many observers noted the declining influence of traditional religion during this period, Holywood argues that the enormous American appetite for spectacle had profound religious significance. Ambrose investigates the sources and significance of interwar enthusiasm for public expressions of Catholicism and argues that these disruptions of modernity (even while using the technologies of modernity) enhanced Catholicism's appeal for Protestant American spectators. Americans grew to accept their Catholic neighbors not through attending mass, but by going to the movies, to the theatre, and to the press. Holywood examines three striking episodes of interwar Catholic visual culture and shows what they reveal about the mutual influence of Catholicism, American religiosity, and popular culture. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781506488219
Publisher:	Augsburg Fortress, Publishers
Publication date:	05/06/2025
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	210

About the Author

Adrienne Nock Ambrose is associate professor of religious studies at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Texas. She has a long-standing interest in popular Catholic devotions, the relationship between religion and visual culture, and the history of religion in America. Her research, publications, and presentations have explored these themes.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Can Catholic Culture Be American Culture?

Chapter 1: Cinema and the Rise of American Spectacle

Chapter 2: The Spectacle in Second City

Chapter 3: The Manhattan Madonna

Chapter 4: The Great White Way

Chapter 5: Images, Holy and Graven

Conclusion: The Spectacle of American Religion