Piety and Prejudice in Chicago’s Early Religious Architecture

Chicago’s architectural histories are dominated by narratives associated with Jenney, Olmsted, Burnham, Sullivan, Wright, and Mies Van der Rohe. These narratives usually focus on infrastructure, landscapes, industry, expositions, skyscrapers, and housing in Chicago. While a few notable historians address Chicago’s early religious buildings, most scholars concentrate on structures exemplifying the evolution of prestigious American architectural styles such as Cram and Shaw’s Fourth Presbyterian Church or Wright’s Unity Temple. The early religious built environment of Chicago and its social meaning has been largely ignored.

In my presentation, I argue that Chicago’s pre-Civil War religious buildings embody critical theological, ethnic, and economic tensions even among co-religionists which pre-sage later conflicts. I also present patterns of early construction by various religions in what was then the city of mud.

Some evidence comes from contemporaneous documentary sources. In eighteen thirty-three, Father St. Cyr reported to Bishop Rosati in St. Louis that although French settlers were extremely courteous, much to “the chagrin of the Protestant minsters,” Catholics failed to provide him funds for Mass candles and wine. Many primary sources were destroyed during the Chicago fires of the eighteen seventies. Fortunately, “Old Settlers” later recounted their memories in print journals. Consequently, we know about the “Big Four” females of the African-American Quinn Chapel who conducted slaves to Canada after eighteen fifty.

From this evidence, we learn that Chicago’s early religious buildings were imbued with social meaning, not solely stylistic status. Such evidence also demonstrates the biases embedded in Chicago’s religious architecture from the first.