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The University of Notre Dame, perhaps the best-known of American Catholic universities, often serves as a mirror of the travails and triumphs of Catholics in mid-twentieth-century America. Its story is as spirited and compelling as the traditions for which Notre Dame is famous.
Being Catholic, Being American, Volume 2: The Notre Dame Story, 1934–1952, continues the work of Burns’ first volume. By 1934, Notre Dame was widely perceived as a university where young men with Irish, German, Italian, and Polish surnames who excelled in sports were educated for success in middle-class America. It was a place where religion was taken seriously and patriotism was highly valued. In the years before, during, and immediately after World War II, this perception was seriously challenged.
After a successful period of academic expansion and improvement under Father John O’Hara (1934–1940), his successor, Father J. Hugh O’Donnell (1940–1946), was drawn into the bitter conflict between isolationists and interventionists then raging in the country. In numerous, widely reported off-campus speeches, Father John A. O’Brien, a well-known, colorful diocesan priest and professor in the religion department, took up the isolationist cause. The more liberal Professor Francis E. McMahon of the philosophy department was an equally outspoken interventionist. The two generated storms of negative publicity. When McMahon’s stance triggered pressure on O’Donnell from the apostolic delegate, the professor’s dismissal was seen as a shameless assault on academic freedom. The incident, occurring as it did in the midst of a terrible war against authoritarian fascist regimes, created the greatest public relations disaster in the history of the university.
Burns describes how the presence of the military and, after the war, the influx of veterans transformed the campus. O’Donnell’s successor, Father John J. Cavanaugh (1946–1952), succeeded in restoring the university’s reputation following the McMahon crisis, aided by the spectacular performance of Frank Leahy’s championship football teams. Cavanaugh believed that a new style of leadership sensitive to public relations and committed to permanent fund raising was required if Notre Dame was to grow and prosper as an authentic modern research-based American Catholic university.
This second volume is invaluable for historians, teachers, students, alumni, sports enthusiasts, and everyone else touched by the story of the University of Notre Dame.
“[A] monumental work of scholarship that is useful to alumni, people interested in Notre Dame, and students of twentieth century Catholic education and history. [E]xtensively and professionally researched.... The text is well written in a prose that is easy to read and engages the reader. “ —Holy Cross History
“Burns has succeeded in combining an institutional history with a detailed personal account of the people that made Notre Dame what it is. His greatest accomplishment has been to combine over two decades of archival sources, public sources, and interviews in a manner that minimizes neither the university nor its people. The result is a book that will be of interest to scholars in educational history, cultural studies, and religion.” —History of Education Quarterly
“[D]escribes the transformation of the University by the presence of the military and the post-war influx of veterans; the spectacular success of Frank Leahy’s championship football teams; and the new style of leadership, which transformed the University into a modern research-based Catholic university.” —Theology Digest
“Continuing his plan to use the University of Notre Dame as a mirror of the travails and triumphs of Catholics in mid-20th-century America, a task he began in the first volume of this history, Burns contends that by 1934 Catholics were viewed as both very religious and very patriotic. By the following year, however, and during and just after World War II, the notion that American Catholics were just as loyal and patriotic as any other group of Americans began to be seriously challenged. The possibly conflicted interests of American Catholics became evident as they themselves and American Catholic universities tried to reconcile the president’s foreign policies with Church interests abroad. Such possibly conflicted interests also resulted in an enlarged nativist fear of Catholic cultural, educational, and political aggression, which would remain part of the American scene until the outpouring of national grief following the Kennedy assassination. This meticulously researched and skillfully written volume is a welcome addition to academic and larger communitiy libraries.“ —Library Journal, October 15, 2000
Robert E. Burns came to the University of Notre Dame in 1957 without previous exposure to Catholic education or commitment to it. He remained at the University for 39 years, serving as a teacher, working historian, and administrator of the College of Arts and Letters. He is retired and lives in Sebastian, Florida with his wife.