Benedict Club: A Home Away From Home

...olunteers, the club had dances and entertainment every night from seven to midnight.[10] In the first year about 200 men visited the club each day and by 1943 that was up to 800.[11] The women volunteers, called the Morale Corps, would organize various themes for the dances as well as

Continue reading

Gift of Finest Wheat: The Story of the 41st International Eucharistic Congress

...eme of the 41st IEC was “The Eucharist and the Hungers of the Human Family” with the goal of examining both physical and spiritual hunger. The history of the Eucharistic Congress dates to 1881, when a one-day congress was held in Lille, France and attended by more than 800 people.

Continue reading

Dougherty’s Movie Boycott

...heaters.[1] By doing so, Dougherty declared it sinful for any of the area’s 800,000 Catholics to enter a movie theater. In his letter to the priests of the Archdiocese, Dougherty called the motion picture theater “perhaps the greatest menace to faith and morals in America today.”[2] Dougherty and many others

Continue reading

A Philadelphia Artist

.... K. Martin's passport, 1829 From the turn of the century up until the mid 1800s, Philadelphia served as the preeminent city for artists in the country, particularly portrait artists and lithographers. Thus, Martin was privy to a vibrant artistic scene. He was able to receive tutoring in portrait painting

Continue reading