Sally Dwyer-McNulty. Common Threads

The rich sacramental tradition of the Roman Catholic Church provides wonderful subject matter for cultural historians. Sally Dwyer-McNulty's fine book on American Catholic clothing offers a close look at one of the most visible features of American Catholic life: the distinctive garb of its “professionals” (priests and sisters) and the uniforms worn by generations of Catholic school children. Robert Orsi and Colleen McDannell have blazed the methodological path for the author who, like them, has broken open a wealth of significance behind a highly visible aspect of the lived experience of U.S. Catholics. Indeed, this garb is in the same cultural league as fish on Friday, the ubiquitous neo-Gothic church, and the rosary. “Clothing” Dwyer-McNulty insists, “is a visual lexicon that humans employ daily,” and she probes its significance in American Catholic life and a wider world (p. 6). Catholicism values the sacramentality of created things, i.e., their ability to communicate beliefs about God and provide an outward sign of their faith. Catholic women and men who consecrated their lives to God in religious life signaled the radical nature of their commitment by wearing special vesture, changing their baptismal names, and foreswearing individual property ownership. Even though her subject matter is the Catholic Church, those who study the garb of other religious traditions, e.g., the Salvation Army military uniform or Mormon undergarments, will find her work helpful.

Aesthetics · Art · Clothing · Faith · Political science · Sign (mathematics) · Sociology · Subject (documents) · Theology · Communism, Protests, Social Movements · Gender Studies · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Law · Philosophy · Religious studies · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies