Fall Research Expo 2021

Creating An Archive of American Religious Groups

The purpose of this project is to create an archive of American religious groups’ views on social issues between 1918-1965. Topics covered include: segregation, World War II, the Cold War, civil rights, feminism, the Vietnam War, global missions, race, eugenics and the population explosion.

During the summer, we have focused on various religious groups’ views on Hitler and the American racial hierarchy. We requested articles from denominational periodicals in the form of PDFs through the Inter-Library Loan service and transcribed and coded them for further analysis. We categorized the surveyed denominations into four groups: sympathizers with Hitler, Distant from Hitler, Ambivalent about Hitler, and Critics of Hitler.

PRESENTED BY
PURM - Penn Undergraduate Research Mentoring Program
CO-PRESENTERS
Zhangyang  Xie
Zhangyang Xie - College of Arts & Sciences 2024
Advised By
Melissa Wilde
Professor of Sociology
Join
  • Elizabeth
  • Zhangyang
for a virtual discussion
PRESENTED BY
PURM - Penn Undergraduate Research Mentoring Program
CO-PRESENTERS
Zhangyang  Xie
Zhangyang Xie - College of Arts & Sciences 2024
Advised By
Melissa Wilde
Professor of Sociology

Comments

Hi Elizabeth! This project is very interesting. I am wondering what kind of language markers/phrases you extracted from the original documents to code each religious group to a certain stance? For example, what motivated you to place the group "Assemblies of God" into the "Distant from Hitler" category?

Great poster!

September 14 | 5:39 PM : by cgrey@upenn.edu

I'm really excited to see where this project could go next. Do you have a sense of how these particular groups might have stood on other issues? Do you think there will be unexpected combinations of beliefs and views, and do you have granular enough data to figure out why they shake out the way they do? Very much looking forward to next steps.

 

Cam Grey

Dept of Classical Studies

Faculty Director, Lauder College House