Slawson, Douglas J. 1947-

views updated

Slawson, Douglas J. 1947-

PERSONAL:

Born June 23, 1947. Education: Catholic University of America, Ph.D.

ADDRESSES:

Home—San Diego, CA. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

National University, San Diego, CA, vice president for student services.

WRITINGS:

(With Stafford Poole) Church and Slave in Perry County, Missouri, 1818-1865, E. Mellen Press (Lewiston, NY), 1986.

The Foundation and First Decade of the National Catholic Welfare Council, Catholic University of America Press (Washington, DC), 1992.

The Department of Education Battle, 1918-1932: Public Schools, Catholic Schools, and the Social Order, University of Notre Dame Press (Notre Dame, IN), 2005.

Ambition and Arrogance: Cardinal William O'Connell of Boston and the American Catholic Church, Cobalt Productions (San Diego, CA), 2007.

SIDELIGHTS:

Douglas J. Slawson was born June 23, 1947. Educated at the Catholic University of America, he ultimately took a position working at the National University in San Diego, California, where he serves as the vice president for student services. Slawson has written a number of books on the church and its link to education, including Church and Slave in Perry County, Missouri, 1818-1865, which he wrote with Stafford Poole, The Foundation and First Decade of the National Catholic Welfare Council, The Department of Education Battle, 1918-1932: Public Schools, Catholic Schools, and the Social Order, and Ambition and Arrogance: Cardinal William O'Connell of Boston and the American Catholic Church.

In The Department of Education Battle, 1918-1932, Slawson addresses the issues pertaining to federal education policy during the 1920s, at a time when various cultural and political agendas caused the policies to alter and often contradict each other. Slawson focuses primarily on the Smith-Towner Act of 1918, as well as the various smaller bills that followed in its wake. These pieces of legislation dealt with federal funding for education, which rose and fell depending on the particular bill. In addition, they addressed who held the ultimate control over the school system, questioning whether the educational system should have been centralized over the entire country. From the 1860s, the government had been tracking various statistics related to education, including population, application, and availability, but it was after the Depression that they began to take a more active interest in altering the system to allow the government itself additional control. The Catholic Church soon became a power in the discussion, when concern over the federal agenda had them worried that students would receiving an education that nullified their heritage outside of the American borders. Charles A. Israel, writing for the American Historical Review, commented that "Slawson is at his best complicating the 1920s caricature of a Catholic conspiracy against American public education." Writing for the Catholic Historical Review, Thomas J. Shelley stated that "the meticulous and massive documentation (forty-nine pages of endnotes) will make Slawson's study the definitive work on this important but neglected aspect of twentieth-century American Catholicism."

Ambition and Arrogance looks at the life and career of Cardinal William O'Connell, who served as the head of the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston from 1906 until his death in 1944. Slawson discusses the man's achievements as well as his somewhat unlikable personality that belied his power and the prestige of his position. Because he was so universally disliked, there was talk of actually removing him from his post, with at least two different popes giving the action consideration before deciding not to move forward with it, in part due to large financial donations from O'Connell, as well as his reputation for being able to build the church. In addition, he was criticized for actions that had nothing to do with his personality, but more with carrying out his duties. At one time or another he was accused of altering the financial books for the church, of allowing his nephew—also a Catholic priest—to marry, and of shirking his duties by not presiding over mass himself. Robert Emmett Curran, in a contribution for the Catholic Historical Review, concluded that "what is new here is Slawson's mining of archival sources, particularly Vatican ones, to delineate a depressingly full picture of O'Connell's use of money and playing of the Roman card to win Vatican support, to show the extent and persistence of the effort to remove O'Connell from Boston, and to underscore the connection between the cardinal's struggle for survival and the shaky beginnings of the National Catholic Welfare Conference."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Historical Review, February 1, 2007, Charles A. Israel, review of The Department of Education Battle, 1918-1932: Public Schools, Catholic Schools, and the Social Order, p. 210.

Catholic Historical Review, January 1, 1991, William Barnaby Faherty, review of Church and Slave in Perry County, Missouri, 1818-1865, p. 134; April 1, 1993, Elizabeth McKeown, review of The Foundation and First Decade of the National Catholic Welfare Council, p. 370; October 1, 2005, Thomas J. Shelley, review of The Department of Education Battle, 1918-1932, p. 869; January 1, 2008, Robert Emmett Curran, review of Ambition and Arrogance: Cardinal William O'Connell of Boston and the American Catholic Church, p. 177.

Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, March 1, 2006, R.J. Reynolds, review of The Department of Education Battle, 1918-1932, p. 1306.

Church History, September 1, 1995, Anne Klejment, review of The Foundation and First Decade of the National Catholic Welfare Council, p. 513; June 1, 2006, Timothy Walch, review of The Department of Education Battle, 1918-1932, p. 455.

Commonweal, January 18, 2008, Lawrence S. Cunningham, review of Ambition and Arrogance, pp. 35-36.

Journal of American History, June 1, 2006, James W. Fraser, review of The Department of Education Battle, 1918-1932, p. 259.

Jurist, January 1, 1993, Gerald P. Fogarty, review of The Foundation and First Decade of the National Catholic Welfare Council, p. 221.