Closing Chapters

Urban Change, Religious Reform, and the Decline of Youngstown's Catholic Elementary Schools, 1960-2006

By (author) Thomas G. Welsh

Not available to order

Publication date:

16 December 2011

Length of book:

340 pages

Publisher

Lexington Books

ISBN-13: 9780739165966

Closing Chapters attempts to explain the disintegration of urban parochial schools in Youngstown, Ohio, a onetime industrial center that lost all but one of its eighteen Catholic parochial elementary schools between 1960 and 2006. Through this examination of Youngstown, Welsh sheds light on a significant national phenomenon: the fragmentation of American Catholic identity.

1 Acknowledgments
2 Dedication
Chapter 3 Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 4 Chapter 2: Rise of a Parochial School System
Chapter 5 Chapter 3: "The Immaculate": One School's Experience
Chapter 6 Chapter 4: Urban Exodus: Depopulation and Urban Parish Schools
Chapter 7 Chapter 5: Demographic Change and Urban Parish Schools
Chapter 8 Chapter 6: Out of These Ashes: Vatican II and Catholic Identity
Chapter 9 Chapter 7: A House Divided: Conclusions
10 Epilogue
11 Bibliography

Closing Chapters is far more than a history of Youngstown and its parish grade schools. This is a well-researched study of the complex forces behind urban change in the decades after 1960—the impact of deindustrialization, surbanization, changing attitudes about education, the divisions among American Catholics, the tensions in society between white and black residents, among classes and ethnic groups. Thoughtful, well-written, and often moving, this book makes a significant contribution.—JoEllen Vinyard, Eastern Michigan University