Beloved Strangers: Interfaith Families in Nineteenth Century America

Abstract

Introduction: In Search of Ancestors 1 Children of the Religious Enlightenment Parents How Children Reinterpreted Their Parents' Values Getting Married, Raising Families Descendants 2 Conversations about Interfaith Marriage Official Opinions Moral Tales Newspaper Romances 3 The Strange Intimacy of Piety and Politics Washington Courtships Converts and Their Husbands Interfaith Families and Their Church A Failed Marriage The Rabbi's Daughter 4 The Uncertain Limits of Liberalism Can the Ethiopian Change His Skin or the Leopard His Spots? Rules and Exceptions Immigrant Autobiographies Interfaith Marriage Moves to an Inside Page 5 Fitting Religion into Complicated Lives A New Kind of Wife One's Own Way to Heaven A Taste for Misbehavior Family Ties A World Turned Upside Down? Epilogue: The Discovery of Interfaith Marriage Appendix The Interfaith Couples Studied, Listed in Chronological Order by Wedding Date Genealogy of the Sherman Family Genealogy of the Mordecai Family Abbreviations Used in the Notes Notes Index Illustrations 1. William Tecumseh Sherman and His Son Tom 2. Mordecai House, Raleigh, North Carolina 3. Catholic Dispensation Form, Vincennes, Indiana, 1888 4. Pere Lachaise Cemetery, Paris, Burial Place of Judah Benjamin 5. Plum Street Temple, Cincinnati, Ohio 6. Ralph Barton Perry and Rachel Berenson Perry 7. Bessie McCoy Davis, 1911