Kenneth C. Barnes is professor of history at the University of Central Arkansas. He is the author of Who Killed John Clayton? Political Violence and the Emergence of the New South and Journey of Hope: The Back-to-Africa Movement in Arkansas in the Late 1800s.
"Anti-Catholicism in Arkansas provides valuable research for
historians of the Catholic Church in the United States. On the one
hand, the book does not significantly alter previous accounts of
Protestant prejudice. Lawmakers employed anti-Catholic attitudes to
limit immigration and force Catholics to assimilate on the terms of
the Protestant majority. The 1915 Convent Inspection law built upon
the same discrimination that led Congress to restrict immigration
from Catholic countries during the 1920s. But Barnes recasts this
familiar motif by bringing to life individuals such as Father
Boniface, who demonstrated that some Catholics prepared to use
civil disobedience in the face of a repressive majority. Scholars
of Catholicism should build upon Barnes's discovery to seek out
more information about this priest and others who prove that
Catholics participated in U.S. history as more than mere
victims."
--Thomas J. Carty, Church History, 2018
"Barnes is surely correct that 'anti-Catholic attitudes seem like a
distant memory to older Americans and incomprehensible to the
young, ' but for those seeking to comprehend the grassroots
dynamics of what was once a front line in the culture wars of the
early and mid-twentieth century, Anti-Catholicism in Arkansas will
be an indispensable resource."
--William Issel, American Historical Review, October 2017
"The origin of this well-written and cogently-argued work sterns
from the author's first-hand observation of anti-Catholic prejudice
directed against his brother, who converted to Catholicism in high
school while growing up in a Baptist household in Arkansas in the
1960s. Kenneth Barnes seeks to understand the sources,
manifestations, and results of bigotry directed against Catholics
in Arkansas over a half-century, and in that he succeeds admirably.
In addition, he places the state in the larger context of national
politics and religious development, thus giving the reader a
clearer picture of how Arkansas influenced, and was influenced by,
religious and political events in the rest of the country through
the election of the first Catholic president in 1960."
--William J. Atto, Catholic Southwest, Volume 28, 2017
"...a good account of how religious prejudice played out in
seemingly non-religious spheres in US history. Librarians
interested in southern studies, religious prejudice, and the legal
status of religious groups will be especially
interested."--Choice
"As Kenneth Barnes shows in his engagingly written and
thought-provoking Anti-Catholicism in Arkansas, fear of foreigners
and foreign influence could grip even a state with very few
immigrants. Barnes' book is one of the most sophisticated and
thoroughly researched studies yet published on anti-Catholic
sentiment in twentieth-century America. Anti-Catholicism in
Arkansas is an insightful, elegantly written study of an important
subject that Americans have ignored for far too long."--Tyler
Anbinder, Arkansas Historical Quarterly, Summer 2017
"A book on both Arkansas and southern history that will shed new
light on an often downplayed aspect of early twentieth-century
religious and political history."--James M. Woods, author of
Mission and Memory: A History of the Catholic Church in
Arkansas
"A well-written and persuasive study of anti-Catholicism in
Arkansas."--Jeannie Whayne, author of Delta Empire: Lee Wilson and
the Transformation of Agriculture in the New South and coauthor of
Arkansas: A Narrative History.
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