Abstract
This chapter examines the response of Salem's churches and unions to the fire and how working people built power in and through those institutions. The Salem fire offers a way to reconcile the importance of the church and other cross-class ethnic organizations with Franco-American unionization. By analyzing the peculiarities of ethnic Catholic political culture, we can better understand the way that lay Catholics practiced politics in their lives outside the church. This chapter considers the relationship symbolized by Father Donat Binette's translating for Governor David Walsh: the system by which clergymen vouched for their parishioners for disaster relief. It also discusses Walsh's exhortation for Catholics to stay in their home parishes and how French Canadians crafted an ethnic political culture in church and the workplace. In particular, it explores how parishioners and clergy at St. Joseph's parish fought with their archbishop for power within the church and how workers at the Naumkeag Steam Cotton Company worked to build power on the shop floor.
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