Opening May 16, 2008, the Museum of the City of New York will present an exhibition on the occasion of the commemoration of the bicentennial of the Archdiocese of the City of New York. This exhibition will tell the story of Catholics in New York from 1808 to 1946.

To launch the upcoming exhibition, the 10th Annual Russo Lecture was held on April 23, 2008, at the Fordham Law School. Terry Golway, editor of the exhibition’s companion volume, Catholics in New York: Society, Culture, and Politics, moderated a discussion with three of the book’s contributors on the diversity and legacy of Catholic life in New York City.

Sachems of Tammany Hall, 1929; including Mayor James

The exhibit itself, “Catholics in New York, 1808-1946,” will be on view from May 16 through December 31, 2008, at the Museum of the City of New York, 1220 Fifth Avenue at 103rd Street. Admission is $9 and free on Sundays between 10am-12pm.

The exhibit will explore the social and political history of the diverse group of people who established the formidable Catholic presence in New York. The first of its kind, the exhibit traces their growth from a tiny religious minority to a powerful force in the city and shows how, by organizing to build their own communities, institutions, and political organizations, Catholics reshaped the fabric of life in all five boroughs.

The exhibition is organized around three central themes:

• How Catholic community life revolved around New York’s parishes, starting with the earliest, such as St. Peter’s, old St. Patrick’s, and St. Brigid’s in Manhattan, and the distinctive subculture that arose in their heavily Catholic neighborhoods;
• The creation of a vast system of health, education, and social welfare institutions, including parochial schools, the New York Foundling Hospital, and healthcare centers such as St. Vincent’s Hospital in Manhattan and St. Mary’s Hospital in Brooklyn, originally founded by Catholics to provide services that embraced their religion and that would be insulated from anti-Catholic prejudice; and
• The rise of Catholics as a force in New York politics, framed by such New York figures as William R. Grace (1832-1904), the Irish-born businessman who in 1880 was elected the first Catholic mayor of New York City; Alfred E. Smith (1873-1944), the governor from the Lower East Side who became the first Catholic to be nominated by a major political party for President of the United States, in 1928; Vito Marcantonio (1902-1954), the Congressman and American Labor Party leader from East Harlem; and many others.

Woven throughout all three sections is how this “community of immigrants” defended its Catholic identity in response to widespread anti-Catholicism. The exhibition begins with a prologue that looks at anti-Catholicism in the colonial period; it concludes with the implementation of the G.I. Bill, which paved the way to higher education, low-cost home mortgages, and ultimately the migration to the suburbs for many of New York’s Catholics, and with an epilogue that presents the new face of Catholic New York since World War II.

A few special activities are planned:

• Sunday, 18 May, 2pm: Gallery talk with senior curator Deborah Dependahl Waters.
• Wednesday, 28 May, 6.30pm: Screening of legendary motion picture On the Waterfront with its Oscar-winning screenwriter Budd Schulberg.The film provides an unforgettable glimpse of Catholic life in 1940s New York City. In a time when Catholic bosses controlled the waterfront ports, Jesuit labor priests fought the corruption.
• Thursday, 12 June, 6.30pm: Moderated discussion examining ethnic cooperation and conflict among Irish, Italian, Polish and Hispanic Catholics.
• Thursday, 26 June, 6.30pm: Moderated discussion about Catholic voters and NYC politics.

For more information about the exhibit and these special events, visit the Museum of the City of New York web site.