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God, Government, and Greenbelt: Lived Religion and the Cultural Politics of (In)Tolerance in the Social Engineering of a Cooperative New Deal Resettlement Town, 1937–1940

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Lived Religion and the Politics of (In)Tolerance

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Abstract

Greenbelt, Maryland, a 1937 federal suburban cooperative town planning experiment, was populated according to a series of quotas, including one focusing on the potential religious composition of the new community. Focusing on Greenbelt’s first three years, this chapter explores the sociopolitical forces—including the notion of “religiosity”—and the lived religion of federal bureaucrats, tenants, and clergy. These factors encouraged interfaith cooperation while at the same time sustaining tensions and divisions that would not be immediately overcome through socially-engineered religious diversity.

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Archival Collections

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    CUA: Catholic University of America Archives

    CUCNY: Columbia University in the City of New York: Oral History Archives

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          Authors and Affiliations

          1. The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC, USA

            Sally Sims Stokes

          Authors
          1. Sally Sims Stokes
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          Correspondence to Sally Sims Stokes .

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          Editors and Affiliations

          1. Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

            R. Ruard Ganzevoort

          2. VU University Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

            Srdjan Sremac

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          Stokes, S.S. (2017). God, Government, and Greenbelt: Lived Religion and the Cultural Politics of (In)Tolerance in the Social Engineering of a Cooperative New Deal Resettlement Town, 1937–1940. In: Ganzevoort, R., Sremac, S. (eds) Lived Religion and the Politics of (In)Tolerance. Palgrave Studies in Lived Religion and Societal Challenges. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-43406-3_7

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          • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-43406-3_7

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          • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

          • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-43405-6

          • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-43406-3

          • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

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