Oral tradition continues in the classroom. Before they invented writing, humans preserved their heritage by word of mouth. Oral Torah existed for thousands of years before it became possible to write anything down. Ancient Greek poetry survived in live performance long before attribution to Homer. Writing preserved these traditions but never eliminated the need for oral transmission to each successive younger generation. In the Hellenistic world, Greek-speaking Jews produced a Bible in their vernacular, and early Christians spread the good news of the Gospel primarily by word of mouth, though Paul told his audience that everything written was written for their instruction—and we in his present-day audience probably heard this message from the pulpit and in school before we read it in the Bible.
The French Revolution disrupted the transmission of such traditions, and when, as part of the recoil from the Reign of Terror, the government allowed preachers to teach again, two new societies of men accepted this responsibility: the Brothers of Saint Joseph and the Auxiliary Priests of Holy Cross, who joined together under the direction of Father Basil Moreau and operated first in France and then in foreign missions.
In 1841, Father Edward Sorin and several brothers came to America on a ship called “the Iowa.” In his chronicle, Sorin appreciates “Captain Pell, an American Episcopalian, liberal and free from bigotry,” who allowed the brothers to exercise on deck, though they had chosen to make the crossing among the poorest passengers below decks who had no such privilege.
Sorin wanted to found a school in Indiana, and the bishop in Vincennes granted his wish in 1842, allowing Sorin and several brothers to trek north to a place known as Saint Mary of the Lake. There a Methodist member of the state legislature amazed Sorin by volunteering to get him charters for two schools, a university and a manual labor school intended to provide an elementary education for orphan boys and to teach them trades so that they could make a living. In his chronicle, Sorin marvels: “Mr. Defrees—this is the name of the member—was not a Catholic; but quite the contrary, a Methodist; but in this case God was pleased to cause him to lay aside for once the prejudices of his sect and even his personal animosities, to make him useful to his country even in favoring his enemies.” In contemplating the charity of Captain Pell and Mr. Defrees perhaps Sorin himself began to lay aside a few prejudices.
As for those official state documents, Sorin wrote: “The two charters, each in its kind, conferred all the privileges that could be granted by the government, and will remain in the archives as the most precious monuments that could be in its possession.”
Even in these early years, Notre Dame accepted non-Catholic students—some Jewish students, some Protestants, and the son of a Miami chief—with the understanding that, though they would inevitably experience some exposure to Catholic beliefs, nobody would undermine their religious convictions. In founding Notre Dame, Sorin certainly had Catholic studies in mind and hoped to convey the European cultural heritage as well. In time he himself experienced a conversion to American ways of thinking, accepting the good he found even in non-Catholic Americans, and stopped regarding all non-Catholics as enemies.
Happy in America, Father Sorin declined to serve as a bishop in Bengal. Later, when he became the superior general of the Congregation of Holy Cross, he declined to live in Rome and ruled from his home in Indiana. As the most influential man on campus in the 19th century, Sorin and his faculty sowed both Catholic and American traditions.
When history professor and librarian James Farnham Edwards extended his eccentric undergraduate collecting to establish the Catholic Archives of America and Bishops’ Memorial Hall, Father Sorin supported his efforts. Edwards understood that original research depends on the preservation of primary sources. His own correspondence with people interested in American Catholic history shows how frustrated they felt at the general lack of interest in such preservation, and how grateful for the exception they found in Edwards. For example, on March 20, 1889, historian John Gilmary Shea wrote that many of the letters Edwards sent him had been in several hands and no use made of them. Before the documents came to Notre Dame, those who had had custody of them, like Archbishop John Hughes, refused to make them available for research. In what Edwards gathered, Shea discovered more material for a real history of the Church in this country than he had ever dreamed possible.
In 1868, another Notre Dame history professor, Timothy Howard, wrote a series of articles for the Notre Dame Scholastic to inspire recognition of the importance of our heritage: “The heroes of Asia, Europe and America pass before us, and we look with admiration upon their godlike forms, and contemplate with enthusiasm the deeds which have raised them to the very stars. They are the actors in the great drama of time.”
Edwards, an editor of the Scholastic in 1867–68, certainly regarded the missionary bishops as heroes. And the Catholic Church, in canonizing saints, even some American saints, recognizes the human need for heroes. This emphasis harmonizes well with the idea of education as the passing on of heritage. Beyond the teaching of history itself, the 19th-century Notre Dame had other departments that also relied on transmission of tradition. Students learned elementary and intermediate mathematics, Catholic philosophy and theology. Commercial students learned bookkeeping and established business practices. Science students learned what scientists had discovered and the traditional requirements of scientific research. Though later in the century some professors did original research, Notre Dame did not expect it of them.
Roughly a decade later, Pope Leo XIII issued his encyclical Aeterni Patris recommending scholastic philosophy, and especially the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, as an antidote to modern trends at odds with Catholic doctrine. The curriculum of Catholic colleges changed accordingly. In his own time Thomas raised many questions, and offended his contemporaries, but the Thomism conveyed in manuals supposedly according to the mind of St. Thomas had answers for all the questions that might arise. Thomism as practiced by some Catholic philosophers and theologians greatly enriched Catholic discourse, but the Thomism that filtered down through the seminaries did not leave room for doubts or questionings.
For Catholic scholars, however, as they turned their attention to the characteristic disputed questions of scholastic philosophy, the revival of Thomism revitalized the questioning at the core of scholarship. And Pope Leo’s more famous encyclical, Rerum Novarum, encouraged American Catholics to engage more fully with the society around them. Catholic Action, originally a European movement, became naturalized in the Young Christian Workers, the Young Christian Students, and the Christian Family Movement, all three of which donated their records to the Notre Dame Archives.
Catholic Action represents the efforts of the laity, but in support of American Catholic studies the Notre Dame Archives also acquired records of clergy, religious men and women, of priests and bishops. Reporters like to repeat the 1905 characterization of journalism as the first draft of history, and the Notre Dame Archives has recognized the importance of the Catholic press in its collecting.
In the classroom and in the pulpit, Catholic traditions—and American traditions—flow from speaker to listeners. The minims at Notre Dame began their elementary studies by learning to read, a fundamental skill for the solitary labor of homework. Young scholars studied recommended texts and produced writings for their teachers, who could then gauge their understanding. Older students at Notre Dame joined their teachers as authors published in the Notre Dame Scholastic. These amateur productions, like the papers written as assignments, qualify as scholarly in some limited sense. Education includes both the social experience of the classroom and the solitary labor of research—at however elementary a level. But Notre Dame, in spite of the University in its title, remained a boarding school for boys into the 20th century, with a majority of students of elementary or high-school age.
Edwards lived until 1911. In the 20th century, he had the help of a professionally trained librarian named Florence Espy. She produced a catalog of the books in Notre Dame’s library. After Edwards died, Father Paul Foik began the work of describing in detail the contents of the Catholic Archives of America. Professional standards developed for librarians and archivists—and, of course, for scholars. Before the end of the 20th century, University Archivist Wendy Clauson Schlereth hired a staff of professionally trained archivists, brought computers to the archives, and initiated programs in harmony with emerging standards such as Encoded Archival Description.
Perhaps the most significant event in the history of American Catholic studies at Notre Dame occurred elsewhere. The Catholic University of America (CUA), founded in 1889, offered research-based graduate education. In 1900, it became one of the 14 universities offering Ph.D. studies that founded the Association of American Universities (AAU). Notre Dame sent its promising scholars there. Those who returned to the faculty with graduate degrees did original research, published it, and raised the standards for Notre Dame faculty. Through their influence, Notre Dame made the transition from boys’ boarding school to university and, in 2023, itself became a member of the AAU.
Two products of CUA plot the trajectory of American Catholic studies in the 20th century. From 1907 to 1914, Catholic scholars contributed articles to the Catholic Encyclopedia, making it an excellent source for students of traditional Catholicism. Two of the five editors worked for CUA. Half a century later, in the 1960s, CUA compiled and published the New Catholic Encyclopedia, with contrasting glimpses into the American Church at the time of Vatican II.
Twentieth-century archivists continued to build up the Catholic research resources at Notre Dame at the same time that the University strengthened the academic reputation of its departments, not least history. Exemplary in both regards was archivist and history department chair Father Thomas McAvoy, C.S.C., who microfilmed records pertaining to America from the Vatican archives and from European societies that supported American Catholic missionaries. He also did original research, published books, and hosted faculty seminars on topics concerning Catholicism in America. Eventually, a new generation would take Father McAvoy’s legacy in a new direction.
Professors Philip Gleason and Jay P. Dolan of the history department directed a conference, described in the Notre Dame Report (27 September, 1974): “A conference on ‛The Reinterpretation of American Catholic History,’ sponsored by the Department of History, will be held October 4 and 5 in the Center for Continuing Education. Conference speakers include Dr. Robert D. Cross, former president of Swarthmore College and author of ‛The Emergence of Liberal Catholicism’ and other noted historians.” In 1975, Dolan approached the higher powers at Notre Dame with the idea of founding a center to support research in American Catholicism. The higher powers agreed, but the new center developed slowly and without a designated director for two years.
An announcement in the Notre Dame Report (April 22, 1977) describes developments in a way that shows that the center did not yet have a generally accepted title, but that it somehow relied on archives, and that it intended to foster a multi-disciplinary approach: “A new publication series, The Notre Dame Studies in American Catholicism, has been announced by the University’s Archive/Center for the Study of American Catholicism and the Notre Dame Press. Authors of book-length manuscripts winning the annual competition for publication will receive a $500 award as an advance on future royalties . . . Publications submitted for judging must be pertinent to the study of the American Catholic experience, past or present. The series will have a social science emphasis, but will not be limited to any one discipline in this area.”
In another issue (December 2, 1977) the Notre Dame Report announced: “Jay P. Dolan, associate professor of history, has been appointed director of the new Notre Dame Center for the Study of American Catholicism.” Two weeks later (December 16, 1977) the Report said that the Ancient Order of Hibernians intended to support “the four major activities of the center—scholarships and instruction; research; publication, and collection of archival material.” Four years later (May 22, 1981) the Report announced: “The University’s Center for the Study of American Catholicism has been endowed by the widow of alumnus Charles B. Cushwa Jr. of Youngstown, Ohio. The center will be named after Charles and Margaret Hall Cushwa who have been frequent benefactors of the University, most recently to Fitzpatrick Hall of Engineering dedicated in 1979. Formed in 1976, the Center has responded to widespread scholarly interest in the role played by Catholic Americans in forming the national culture.”
So how do we get from the answers supplied by heritage to the questions posed by American Catholic studies? One might find further clues in the histories of Notre Dame. After 50 years, Notre Dame naturally wanted to celebrate its golden anniversary. Sorin’s health was failing in 1892. He attended a modest celebration of Notre Dame’s 50th anniversary, but the mood on campus did not favor a big celebration. Sorin died at age 80 in 1893. The belated golden anniversary celebration took place in 1895, and Timothy Howard wrote what he called a brief history of the University (300 pages). He had at his disposal the testimony of individuals still living and the archives preserved by Edwards. For Notre Dame’s centennial, Father Arthur Hope wrote Notre Dame: One Hundred Years. Like Howard, he had the help of oral testimony from the older generation. A great raconteur, Hope made the story of Notre Dame quite entertaining.
In a sense, all of the histories of Notre Dame, however brief or expansive, make up a local tradition of what would eventually be called American Catholic studies. Father James Connelly, author of The History of the Congregation of Holy Cross and archivist for the congregation, published a scholarly edition of Sorin’s Chronicle. Father Marvin O’Connell wrote an engaging biography of Sorin. John Theodore Wack wrote a dissertation on the first 15 years of the University. Father Philip S. Moore wrote a history of Notre Dame’s academic development. American studies professor Thomas Schlereth published a portrait of Notre Dame rich in photographs with attention to material culture. Two photo archivists, Charles Lamb and Elizabeth Hogan, have recently presented two more books of Notre Dame photographs with commentary. For the latest synthesis, one may consult the 2020 history of Notre Dame by former archivist and history professor Father Thomas Blantz. But the two-volume history by Robert Burns makes it explicit in the title—Being Catholic, Being American: The Notre Dame Story.
Wm. Kevin Cawley retired in 2019 from his role as senior archivist and curator of manuscripts at the Archives of the University of Notre Dame, after 36 years of service. He serves as an archivist for Notre Dame’s Jacques Maritain Center and as chair of the digital access subcommittee for the American Theological Library Association’s Catholic Research Resources Alliance (CRRA) program.
This announcement appears in the spring 2025 issue of the American Catholic Studies Newsletter.