How the Working Class Shaped Religion in America

In a society without an established aristocracy or landed titles but with generous access to the ballot, a democratized consumer marketplace, and an insistence (at least rhetorically) on equality, how are social ranks demonstrated? Race, of course, is primary. But religion—by which I mean both the public performance of rituals and the private structure of thoughts and beliefs—became a major marker of class in the 20th century. Workers often saw their religion as evidence of middle-class aspirational respectability; however, those who shouted at church, prayed to patron saints for miracles, liked certain religious music, or seemed overly dependent on priests and pastors were understood to be “working class.” I have little doubt that people who lived in working-class Catholic parishes or attended evangelical storefront churches did, in fact, realize that their religious identity was inextricably tied to a class identity in the eyes of the larger community.