Religion in Culture Lecture

On Wednesday, September 27, 2006, the Department held its first Religion in Culture Lecture of the new academic year. The lecturer, Associate Professor Alexis McCrossen--a historian who teaches at Southern Methodist University--delivered a well attended public talk entitled "Sunday in Depression Era America."

Prof. McCrossen has taught at SMU since receiving her doctorate in American Civilization from Harvard University in 1995. Her first book Holy Day, Holiday: The American Sunday was published by Cornell University Press in 2000. (The introduction to the book is posted here.) Noted scholar of American religious history, Dorothy Bass, wrote concerning the book: "By demonstrating that contemporary Sundays are shaped more by 'the commercialization of everyday life' than by a triumph of secularization, [McCrossen] adds a crucial insight to the vital conversation about Sunday that continues to this day. If she is right--and I think she is--then Christians [for example] who seek the festive and restive experience of Sunday [as the] Lord's Day [or the] Sabbath, must overcome not so much the faceless secularism of mass culture as [their] own consumerism."

Prof. McCrossen's subsequent book projects have included an edited volume on the history of consumer culture in the US-Mexico borderlands (which will appear in the near future from Duke University Press) and a book about the history of timepieces in the United States called Marking Modern Times: Americans and their Timepieces (under contract with University of Chicago Press).

Prof. McCrossen remarked to Prof. Trost, who introduced her lecture, that the first history paper she ever wrote, when she was in junior high school in Albuquerque, New Mexico, was about the Great Depression--a period that has continued to fascinate her. Indeed, for those in attendance could easily see a number of her long-standing interests coming together in the topic she chose for her Religion in Culture lecture, "Sunday in Depression Era America"--which drew on black and white photographs which are part of the Farm Security Administration-Office of War Information Collection, which includes over 160,000 photographs that document everyday life during the Depression years and pre-WWII period in American history.

As usual, a sumptuous smorgasbord of baked delights tempted attendees' senses (i.e., we had cookies and punch).

Prof. Ramey (right)--speaking here with Tsy Yusef, a REL major and student worker in the Department who assists Prof. Murphy with his large enrollment REL 100--joined the REL faculty this Fall. In doing so, he stepped immediately into the role of event coordinator for the Department's public lecture series. (See the Events page for upcoming lectures.)

Cookies make everyone happy.

Our thanks to Betty Dickey and to Donna Martin for once again planning Department events. Thanks also goes to Prof. Trost for sharing the text of his introduction and also to Jennifer "Shutterbug" Alfano for her photographic record of the event.

Because it was under renovation last year, Prof. McCrossen's lecture marked the Department's first use of Gorgas Library's new lecture hall on the second floor. This marks the second year that REL has held all of its public lectures in Gorgas Library.

A number of REL students attended the talk, many of whom are enrolled in Prof. Jacobs's REL 238 and Prof. McCutcheon's REL 482. Among the students pictured above are: Christopher Crotwell (front left), Kristi Nix, and Karissa Rinas (front right). Both Chris and Karissa are also Philosophy majors.

Because her lecture focused so closely on photographs from the FSA-OWI collection, Prof. McCrossen's talk was coordinated with a number of very effectively used images from that era.

Perhaps there is no more famous photograph from this impressive collection than that which was taken by photographer Dorothea Lange (1895-1965), entitled, "Migrant Mother." The photo, which appeared widely in magazines at the time, depicts Florence Owens Thompson and her three children, and was taken by Lange early in 1936, in Nipomo, CA. (Learn more about the photograph here.)

Although also addressing how such things as race and gender were represented in these photographs, the lecture demonstrated the manner in which the photographs in this collection that were recorded as taken on Sunday--the so-called "day of rest"--document the changing ways in which leisure and work were conceptualized and conveyed in Depression era America.

Another photograph from the collection, also taken by Dorothea Lange, entitled "Sunday morning in Tennessee," taken in July 1936. (Learn more about other photographers who worked on this project.)

At the close of her talk, Prof. Ramey presented our lecturer with a framed version of the flyer that advertised her lecture along with a Department mug. (There's nothing like an invented tradition!) A lively Q&A period followed the talk.

Once again, the lecture was attended by members of the wider Tuscaloosa community as well as some faculty from other Departments, including Prof. Maarten Ultee of our History Department, who has himself been a Religion in Culture lecturer.