Thomas F. RzeznikAssociate Professor

Seton Hall UniversityThomas.Rzeznik@shu.edu

400 South Orange Avenue (973) 275-2204 (office) South Orange, NJ 07079

EDUCATION

Ph.D., History, University of Notre Dame, 2006M.A., History, University of Notre Dame, 2003B.A., summa cum laude, in cursu honorum, History and Political Science, Fordham University, 2000

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Seton Hall University (South Orange, NJ)Associate Professor, Department of History, 2012 - presentAssistant Professor, Department of History, 2006 - 2012Assistant Director, Catholic Studies Program, 2008 - 2011

American Catholic Studies -- Journal of the American Catholic Historical Society of PhiladelphiaCo-editor, 2013 - presentCommittee on Publication, 2012 – 2013

American Catholic Historical AssociationJohn Gilmary Shea Prize committee, 2013-2015

PUBLICATIONS

BOOK

Spiritual Capital: Religion and Wealth in Industrial Era Philadelphia (Penn State Press, 2013)

This book examines the lives and religious commitments of the Philadelphia elite during the period of industrial prosperity that extended from the late nineteenth century through the 1920s.  It demonstrates how their religious beliefs informed their actions and shaped their class identity, while simultaneously revealing the ways financial influences shaped the character of American religious life as it took its modern form.

ARTICLES / CHAPTERS

“Placing the Diocese at the Center of Things: The Church in Prosperity, Depression, and War, 1910-1945,” in This Far by Faith: A History of Tradition and Change in the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania (Penn State Press, 2012).

“The Parochial Enterprise: Financing Institutional Growth in the Brick-and-Mortar Era,” American Catholic Studies (Fall 2010).

“The Church in the Changing City: Parochial Restructuring in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia in Historical Perspective,” U.S. Catholic Historian (Fall 2009).

“ ‘Representatives of All That Is Noble’: The Rise of the Episcopal Establishment in Early Twentieth-Century Philadelphia,” Religion & American Culture (Winter 2009).

CURRENT RESEARCH

I am currently working on a history of Saint Vincent’s Hospital, the first (and last) Catholic hospital in New York City. The study not only seeks to understand the rise and fall of this one institution—and Catholic health care more broadly—but also aims to explore what its history represents for both American Catholicism and American society at large.

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