John F. Quinn, Ph.D.
John F. Quinn, Ph.D.
Professor and Chair | History
Dr. John F. Quinn joined the history faculty at Salve Regina University in 1992. He specializes in modern Irish history and American religious and ethnic history, and teaches courses on topics including France since the Revolution, Hitler and the Holocaust, and the American Immigrant Experience. Dr. Quinn received his A.B. from Georgetown University, magna cum laude, and earned an M.A. and Ph.D. in History from the University of Notre Dame. A revised version of his dissertation was published as Father Mathew’s Crusade: Temperance in Nineteenth-Century Ireland and Irish America (University of Massachusetts Press, 2002), and his articles have appeared in the New England Quarterly, American Catholic Studies, History Ireland, Rhode Island History and Newport History.
Featured Fall 2023
American Reaction to Gregory XVI's Condemnation of the Slave Trade
John F. Quinn
Abstract: Slavery and the Catholic Church in the United States explores Catholics’ varied roles in race-based slavery, whether as enslaved persons, slave-holders, defenders of slavery, or advocates of abolition and emancipation. This collection of essays witnesses to the fragility of humanity, which is capable of freedom or slavery, brotherhood or hatred, yet it offers hope by acknowledging and responding to this uncomfortable but little-known history. Dr. Quinn’s essay looks at an 1839 statement by Pope Gregory XVI which condemned the slave trade and was thought by some observers to condemn slavery as well. The pope’s letter sparked controversy in the United States all the way up to the Civil War.
Access:
Slavery and the Catholic Church in the United States: Historical Studies, edited by David J. Endres
Published by The Catholic University of America Press, 2023
McKillop Library Main Collection: HT917.C38 S53 2023
eBook: Click here to access through JSTOR
Featured Spring 2021
“We Were All Prejudiced More or Less against Him”
The American Bishops’ Response to Father Mathew’s Temperance Tour, 1849–1851
John F. Quinn
Abstract: This article examines Father Theobald Mathew’s American tour of 1849-1851. The prospect of a visit from Ireland’s famed “Apostle of Temperance” drew an excited response from Whig politicians and abolitionist leaders, two groups not usually linked with Irish Americans. However, both groups genuinely admired Mathew for his campaign against alcohol and hoped that by tying themselves to him that they would be able to draw Irish Americans into their ranks. Far less enthusiastic were the nation’s Catholic bishops, who were wary of the priest because of his associations with Protestants and abolitionists. After some initial hesitation, Mathew chose to stay close to the bishops and far from the abolitionists. By so doing, he was able to gain the hierarchy’s support for what would prove to be an extraordinarily successful temperance mission. At the same time, Mathew’s unwillingness to address slavery sorely disappointed abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison.
CMOS Citation
Quinn, John F. “'We Were All Prejudiced More or Less against Him': The American Bishops’ Response to Father Mathew’s Temperance Tour, 1849–1851.” The Catholic Historical Review 106, no. 3 (Summer 2020): 421-452.
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McKillop Library EBSCOhost Database: DOI 10.1353/cat.2020.0049