Chapter 1
Designing New Ways of Seeing Christianity
Chapter Summary
This chapter examines the religion-oriented articles published by fashion magazines from the mid-1940s through the 1960s. These articles provide a valuable starting point for understanding how fashion conceptualized Christianity during this time. By fusing elements of liberal Protestantism and Catholic art and ritual in their construction of Christianity, fashion magazine articles fostered religious individualism, spiritual tourism, and the decontextualization of Christian elements. After establishing the religious context of the mid-twentieth century, this chapter examines three prominent themes—Christmas, church, and pilgrimage—through which this fashionable vision of Christianity was conveyed. Fashion magazines taught readers how to cultivate a stylish form of Christianity that aligned the sophistication of modernity with the enchantment of religion.
Teaching Resources
Christianity and the Religious Landscape of the 1950s & 60s
Chapter 1 focuses on how fashion magazines construct and frame Christianity (and religion more broadly) in the 1950s and 1960s. In utilizing fashion sources, this chapter highlights the ways Christianity was interpreted by and circulated in the public sphere. The chapter can help students identify what religious ideas and topics were deemed "popular," and how they were adapted (or not) for broader audiences.
Possible Student Learning Outcomes:
The student will be able to (SWBAT) identify dominant religious trends in mid-twentieth-century America.
The SWBAT analyze different Christian theological trends and positions.
The SWBAT assess why the fashion industry selected some Christian figures and ideas and evaluate the implications.
Potential Strategies:​
Primary Source Reading: In addition to chapter 1, have students read one or two of the articles printed in Vogue or Harper's Bazaar. If access is an issue, have students do some web research on one of the religious figures mentioned. These readings/research can then provide the basis for a preliminary discussion of Christianity at mid-century, which can be supplemented by a mini-lecture and nuanced by the collaborative interactive timeline activity. Before or during class, you might also have students watch clips from the videos below and read a poem by Phyllis McGinley.
Collaborative Interactive Timeline: Share the google slide timeline template (find an example here) with students before or at the start of class. They can then individually or in groups add text, images, and video clips to the timeline using information from the assigned reading(s), as well as computers/phones to identify other central cultural events of the era. The class can then use this timeline to (1) identify different Christian theological trends, (2) contextualize those trends within the wider cultural context, (3) reflect on key themes, and (4) identify what issues, groups, elements the timeline may be missing.
Mini-Lecture: After the timeline activity, it may be helpful to provide broader context and fill-in the gaps. The resources cited below provide a great starting point. Also, given Religion in Vogue's focus on fashion, you might add a brief discussion of trends in art and fashion history at the time. For a great overview, see Karina Reddy, "1950-1959 | Fashion History Timeline."
Video Clip of Bishop James A. Pike
The Episcopalian Pike served as Chair of the Department of Religion and Chaplain at Columbia University. In 1958, he was elected a bishop coadjutor in California. He was well known for using the media (television appearances, letters to newspapers) to make his "liberal" social-religious views known. Along with writings by other prominent Christian figures, Vogue published his article, "A God-Shaped Blank in Man's Heart," in 1950. In this brief clip, you can see some of the religious debates of the time.
Billy Graham Sermon at Yankee Stadium in 1957
Billy Graham, arguably the most prominent American preacher of the 20th century, rarely merits a mention in fashion magazines. Watch a bit of Graham's sermon and compare it with the views of Pike to help answer the question: Why might this be the case?
Reflections at Dawn by Phyllis McGinley
Vogue published two short articles focused on the Saints by the Catholic McGinley in the early 1960s. Her tone and approach differ in interesting ways from both Pike and Graham. What does her presence in Vogue and her popularity mean in relation to midcentury American religion? Interstingly, the poem's first line mentions fashion designer Christian Dior, who took the fashion world by storm in the 1940s and 50s.
I wish I owned a Dior dress
Made to my order out of satin.
I wish I weighed a little less
And could read Latin.
Had perfect pitch or matching pearls,
A better head for street directions,
And seven daughters, all with curls
And fair complexions.
I wish I'd tan instead of burn.
But most, on all the stars that glisten,
I wish at parties I could learn
to sit and listen.
I wish I didn't talk so much at parties.
It isn't that I want to hear
My voice assaulting every ear,
Uprising loud and firm and clear
Above the cocktail clatter.
It's simply, once a doorbells' rung,
(I've been like this since I was young)
Some madness overtake my tongue
And I begin to chatter.
Buffet, ball, banquet, quilting bee,
Wherever conversation's flowing,
Why must I feel it falls on me
To keep things going?
Though ladies cleverer than I
Can loll in silence, soft and idle,
Whatever topic gallops by,
I seize its bridle,
Hold forth on art, dissect the stage,
Or babble like a kindergart'ner
Of politics till I enrage
My dinner partner.
I wish I did'nt talk so much at parties.
When hotly boil the arguments,
Ah? would I had the common sense
To sit demurely on a fence
And let who will be vocal,
Instead of plunging in the fray
With my opinions on display
Till all the gentlemen edge away
To catch an early local
Oh! there is many a likely boon
That fate might flip me from her griddle.
I wish that I could sleep till noon
And play the fiddle,
Or dance a tour jete' so light
It would not shake a single straw down.
But when I ponder how last night
I laid the law down.
More than to have the Midas touch
Or critics' praise, however hearty,
I wish I didn't talk so much,
I wish I didn't talk so much,
I wish I didn't talk so much,
When I am at a party.
Resources:
Robert S. Ellwood, The Fifties Spiritual Marketplace: American Religion in a Decade of Conflict (Rutgers University Press,1997).
Robert Wuthnow, After Heaven: Spirituality in American Since the 1950s (University of California Press, 2000).
Wade Clark Roof, Spiritual Marketplace: Baby Boomers and the Remaking of American Religion (Princeton University Press, 1999).
Erin A. Smith, What Would Jesus Read?: Popular Religious Books and Everyday Life in Twentieth Century America (UNC Press, 2015).
Joanne Beckman, "Religion in Post-World War II America"
PBS, God in America Timeline
Collage Photo Credits:
Phyllis McGinley PR Photograph
K. Kolencik, "Lumiere Lourdes France Candles Light Tourism," Pixaby.
Giovanni Bellini, "The Presentation at the Temple"
Claude Lorrain, "The Sermon on the Mount,"
Cover of Peale's The Power of Positive Thinking
Ricardo Gomez Angel, The White Chapel by LeCorbusier, France, Unsplash.
Ricardo Gomez Angel, Panagia Paraportiani Church, Greece, Unsplash.
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