Boniface Wimmer

In 1846 Boniface Wimmer, O.S.B., (1809-1887), set sail from Germany with a vision of transplanting the Benedictine Order to America. Armed with nothing more than an unwavering vision and 18 brave companions, Wimmer founded Saint Vincent Archabbey, College, and Seminary, set amidst the rolling hills of Latrobe, Pennsylvania, firmly rooting Benedictine Monasticism as part of the American-Catholic tradition. Following Wimmer s death in 1887, the monks of Saint Vincent and its daughterhouses set out to gather all of his letters and correspondences a task that undoubtedly included collecting portrait photographs of Wimmer. Portrait photography of the mid-19th century possesses an intrinsic artistry; a 30-plus-second exposure demanded thoughtful and compelling compositions with a painterly aesthetic, accomplished with soft, natural light and mirrors. The Complete Portraits of Boniface Wimmer, O.S.B., presents 21 portrait photographs accompanied by heartening quotes from Wimmer s letters, and excerpts from the Pittsburg Dispatch, tracing Wimmer s life as an early American missionary priest, to his death as Archabbot of Saint Vincent, revealing an intimate look into the founder of Benedictine Monasticism in North America.

This volume is a newly revised and expanded version of An American Abbot, the biography of Boniface Wimmer, O.S.B., published twenty years ago by the Archabbey Press. In preparing the new edition, Jerome Oetgen has thoroughly reexamined the primary sources, added material from additional sources, and taken into account the results of scholarly research on American Catholic and Benedictine history published since 1976. The achievement of Boniface Wimmer, the father of the Benedictine presence in the United States, has been generally underestimated in the history of American Catholicism. Modern historians of the Catholic Church in the United States have tended to neglect the story of Catholicism on the American rural frontier where between 1830 and 1860 the majority of the 1.5 million German immigrants settled. It was chiefly to serve these farm-bound immigrants that Wimmer came to America in 1846, and for the next forty years, as his evangelization efforts expanded to include Irish, African Americans, Native Americans, and immigrants from eastern Europe, he consistently exhibited the traditional Benedictine preference to establish monasteries and religious centers in farming regions and to work among the people of the countryside rather than those of the cities. In his own lifetime Wimmer was widely esteemed both by the American hierarchy for his distinguished pastoral work and by European ecclesiastical and monastic leaders for the crucial role he played in the nineteenth-century revival and development of Benedictine monasticism. Though his work may not have brought him to center stage in the American Catholic Church, he was nonetheless one of the key supporting actors. This biography assesses his part and lasting importance. Jerome Oetgen is a U.S. foreign service officer currently on assignment as director of the Fulbright Exchange Program for Latin America and the Caribbean at the United States Information Agency in Washington, D.C. He has published numerous articles on the history of the American Benedictines. ""This work of nonfiction contains several of the key ingredients of a classic adventure story. . . . The serious student of American religion cannot afford to ignore this biography.""--The Heythrop Journal ""Oetgen has rewritten our understanding of the founder of American monasticism, creating in the process a work of enduring value. . . .""-Dom Paschal Baumstein, O.S.B., Belmont Abbey College ""No one who is interested in the history of religion in America or in the fortunes of this venerable Benedictine order will want to overlook this fine work.""-Demetrius R. Dumm, O.S.B., Saint Vincent Archabbey ""This revised edition is filled with new information. . . . Wimmer, dedicated, single minded, stubborn, made history. Oetgen has done a commendable job of writing it.""-Prof. David J. O'Brien, College of the Holy Cross ""Oetgen has written a revised and expanded version of the unique historical record of Boniface Wimmer. In doing so, he gives the reader an even deeper appreciation of Wimmer's role as monastic pioneer in the context of nineteenth-century American Catholicism.""-F. Joel Rippinger, O.S.B., Marmion Abbey ""Every so often a figure comes along who captures the spirit of the times and is able to use that insight to spread the gospel. Boniface Wimmer did just that.""-Rembert G. Weakland, O.S.B., Archbishop of Milwaukee Table of Contents: Foreword by Demetrius Dumm, OSB Preface to the Revised Edition Preface to the 1976 Edition Introduction by Colman J. Barry, OSB 1. Thalmassing to Metten 2. Answering the Call 3. The First Years 4. Growth and Expansion 5. Visions and Rebellions 6. Consolidation and Further Growth 7. Laughter and Tears Epilogu

The first edition of Worship and Work: Saint John's Abbey and University, 1856-1956, was published on the occasion of the centennial observance of Abbot Boniface Wimmer's first American monastic foundation in Minnesota. Reprinted in 1980 on the occasion of the fifteen-hundredth anniversary of the birth of Abbot Saint Benedict, the work included an epilogue covering the first quarter of Saint John's second century. This third edition, published in 1993, contains the original, unabridged text of the first two editions, along with an epilogue covering 1980-1992.

Investigates the transmittal of the Benedictine tradition of love of learning, books, and libraries associated with the order's monasteries in Europe to the United States. The author analyses the establishment of the Benedictine Order in the United States and the college libraries that its members began.

Tracing the development of social reform movements among American Catholics from 1880 to 1925, Deirdre Moloney reveals how Catholic gender ideologies, emerging middle-class values, and ethnic identities shaped the goals and activities of lay activists. Rather than simply appropriate American reform models, ethnic Catholics (particularly Irish and German Catholics) drew extensively on European traditions as they worked to establish settlement houses, promote temperance, and aid immigrants and the poor. Catholics also differed significantly from their Protestant counterparts in defining which reform efforts were appropriate for women. For example, while women played a major role in the Protestant temperance movement beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, Catholic temperance remained primarily a male movement in America. Gradually, however, women began to carve out a significant role in Catholic charitable and reform efforts. The first work to highlight the wide-ranging contributions of the Catholic laity to Progressive-era reform, the book shows how lay groups competed with Protestant reformers and at times even challenged members of the Catholic hierarchy. It also explores the tension that existed between the desire to demonstrate the compatibility of Catholicism with American values and the wish to preserve the distinctiveness of Catholic life.

“Outstanding essays” exploring how educated Northerners viewed, and discussed, the Civil War (Michael B. Ballard, Civil War News). With contributions from multiple historians, this volume addresses the role intellectuals played in framing the Civil War and implementing their vision of a victorious Union. Broadly defining “intellectuals” to encompass doctors, lawyers, sketch artists, college professors, health reformers, and religious leaders, the essays address how these thinkers disseminated their ideas, sometimes using commercial or popular venues and organizations to implement what they believed. To what extent did educated Americans believe that the Civil War exposed the failure of old ideas? Did the Civil War promote new strains of authoritarianism in northern intellectual life, or reinforce democratic individualism? How did it affect northerners’ conception of nationalism and their understanding of their relationship to the state? These essays explore myriad topics, including: *How antebellum ideas about the environment and the body influenced conceptions of democratic health *How leaders of the Irish American community reconciled their support of the United States and the Republican Party with their allegiances to Ireland and their fellow Irish immigrants *How intellectual leaders of the northern African American community explained secession, civil war, and emancipation *The influence of southern ideals on northern intellectuals *Wartime and postwar views from college and university campuses—and the ideological acrobatics that professors at Midwestern universities had to perform in order to keep their students from leaving the classroom *How northern sketch artists helped influence the changing perceptions of African American soldiers over the course of the war Collectively, So Conceived and So Dedicated offers an in-depth look at this part of the nation’s intellectual history—and suggests that antebellum modes of thinking remained vital and tenacious well after the Civil War.