The narrative of Catholic settlement and development in the United States and Canada has been one that most often highlights the struggle for religious acceptance or the persistent curse of sectarianism. Yet, John Quinn’s study of the Newport, Rhode Island, Catholic community tells a very different story. The Rise of Newport’s Catholics can be consumed by different audiences for different reasons. It is a social history of Catholic peoples – French, Irish, and later Italian and Portuguese – who built a Catholic community in a space that was most famous for the summer residences that were once constructed by some of America’s wealthiest families. Readers interested in the growth and development of Newport’s Catholic community – by the 1930s “Catholics had become embedded in Newport’s political, economic, and cultural fabric” (235) – will find much of interest concerning its churches, schools, politicians, mutual benefit societies, and congregations of women religious.

Yet, while bringing to life those more localized events and personalities, the book also tracks the great changes in American Catholicism over the decades and demonstrates that while Newport Catholics may have once been “colonial outcasts” in a Protestant setting, the conventional narrative of sectarianism and marginalization that has long dominated the historiography of American Catholicism did not hold true in that celebrated Rhode Island town. In this way, the book represents another call for historians to change how we approach the broader Catholic experience in the United States and Canada. In tracking the Catholic experience in Newport from the Colonial era through the 1930s, Quinn profiles a community that grappled with issues of class (now mostly ignored by scholars), ethnicity, and societal challenges. Like other North American Catholic communities, Newport Catholics had begun to enter the middle class just as the ultramontane era was getting underway. Despite the reticence of American bishops to support Papal Infallibility, from the 1860s until the early twentieth century, there was great institutional and political growth among a well-organized Catholic community with temperance societies and literary clubs that laid the foundation for a strong Catholic substate.

“Accepted and yet apart,” as Quinn titles one of his chapters, is a good way of describing Catholic people who were both siloed and determined to contribute to civil society in the United States. The book draws out many of these nuances, describing an Irish Catholic community, for example, that routinely fundraised for Ireland-related issues, but also strove to become members of the mainstream society. We are introduced to the politician Patrick Boyle, the Irish Catholic trailblazer, who would eventually serve 16 one-year terms as mayor and become known for his ability to “work with all constituencies in Newport, especially the summer colonists” (184). Moreover, while Quinn is telling a very American story, he also continually reminds us of the multi-ethnic nature of the Church in the United States, as Newport was long home to believers of various nationalities and French-Canadian women religious and Montreal-educated priests.

While Quinn does not hide the incidents of sectarianism that Newport experienced, overt and subtle, he also demonstrates that throughout the decades, many Protestants remained friendly with their Catholic neighbors, fostered personal relationships, and collaborated within civil society. Oftentimes, the most fractious moments within Newport’s Catholic community occurred among Catholics themselves, as disagreements related to episcopal authority, teaching sisters focusing on wealthy clientele, or even ethnic animosities, created discomfort. While Newport’s Catholics were right to be concerned about issues such as nativism or the growth of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1930s, Italian Catholics who settled in the town at the turn of the century found that they had to defend themselves against a Catholic priest who had castigated the community as “descended from Brigands” (206). This is important as the dominant sectarian-focused historiography has routinely missed the deeply ingrained ethnic divisions that existed within Catholic communities.

All serious historians strive to put their subjects into a wider context. In this very readable and well-researched book, Quinn has successfully told the story of Newport’s Catholics within the greater social and economic circumstances of the periods in question. Yet, The Rise of Newport’s Catholics offers something far more important by demonstrating that Newport was a space that defied the typical and long-popularized Catholic settlement narrative of marginalization in the United States. While that does not come out in the epilogue – a conclusion would have been more useful than the epilogue – it will attract a readership that extends well beyond New England.