Moore, Andrew S. 1968-

PERSONAL:

Born November 9, 1968. Education: University of the South, B.A., 1991; University of Tennessee, M.A., 1994; University of Florida, Ph.D., 2000.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Saint Anselm College, 100 Saint Anselm Dr., Manchester, NH 03102. E-mail—amoore@anselm.edu.

CAREER:

St. Anselm College, Manchester, NH, associate professor.

WRITINGS:

The South's Tolerable Alien: Roman Catholics in Alabama and Georgia, 1945-1970, Louisiana State University Press (Baton Rouge, LA), 2007.

SIDELIGHTS:

Andrew S. Moore, born November 9, 1968, received his B.A. in 1991 from the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, his M.A. in 1994 from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, and his Ph.D. in 2000 from the University of Florida in Gainesville. He is an associate professor of modern U.S. history at St. Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire.

His first book, The South's Tolerable Alien: Roman Catholics in Alabama and Georgia, 1945-1970, expands on his doctoral thesis, in which he examines the social context of Roman Catholics as a religious minority in the South, specifically in Alabama and Georgia after World War II. Moore finds that anti-Catholic prejudice lessened as southerners concentrated on keeping the races separate, and that struggles for Catholics became more internal than external during the civil rights movement.

It was journalist W.J. Cash who first called southern Catholics "the intolerable alien" in 1941. In the heavily Protestant South they were the targets of prejudice, hatred, and bigotry long after Catholicism had joined the religious mainstream in the rest of the country. However, when African Americans began to fight for their civil rights in the 1960s, white Catholics joined with white Protestants in their defense of segregation. In this struggle, religious differences became less important, and Catholics became the "tolerable aliens" of Moore's history. The author describes the emergence of differences among the southern Catholic communities as the Second Vatican Council of the early 1960s was changing the church's outlook and doctrine. In Atlanta, for example, a newer Catholic community tended to be more liberal and more involved in the civil rights movement than their Alabama counterparts.

Reviewing The South's Tolerable Alien for The Journal of Southern Religion, Gregory N. Hite called it "an insightful examination of Catholic life in post-World War II Georgia and Alabama that offers an important contribution to a number of academic fields," and commented: "Moore's nuanced approach to the interaction of faith and race in the South is a welcome contribution to our understanding of the varieties of Southern identity." Praise also came from Michael Pasquier in his review for Church History: "The South's Tolerable Alien provides historians with an insightful rendering of the lives of southern Catholics in light of the radical social changes that came out of the civil rights movement and the Second Vatican Council…. [It is] an important reminder that conservatism is often just as much a part of ecumenical dialogue as progressivism." In his review for H-Net: Humanities and Social Sciences Online, Arthur Remillard commended The South's Tolerable Alien, writing: "For its succinct presentation, compelling observations, and exemplary research, Moore's book is a noteworthy addition to the historiography of southern religion."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Church History, December 1, 2007, Michael Pasquier, review of The South's Tolerable Alien: Roman Catholics in Alabama and Georgia, 1945-1970, p. 872.

Journal of American History, December 1, 2007, James M. Woods, review of The South's Tolerable Alien, p. 992.

ONLINE

H-Net: Humanities and Social Sciences Online,http://www.h-net.org/ (January, 2008), Arthur Remillard, "Becoming Tolerable in an Intolerable South," review of The South's Tolerable Alien.

Journal of Southern Religion Web site,http://jsr.fsu.edu/ (July 3, 2008), Gregory N. Hite, review of The South's Tolerable Alien.

St. Anselm College History Department Web site,http://www.anselm.edu/ (July 2, 2008), author's curriculum vitae.