Date of Award
11-12-2021
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Heritage Studies, Ph.D.
First Advisor
Edward Salo
Second Advisor
Lauri Umansky
Committee Members
Edward Salo; Lauri Umansky; Ruth Hawkins
Call Number
LD 251 .A566d 2021 S58
Abstract
This dissertation explores the creation, and development of the cultural landscape of Catholics in Weiner, Arkansas, as a means to interpret and preserve the heritage of the people of the region’s religious and Germanic heritage and how that has shaped this part of the state. The dissertation focuses on the development of a plan for the historical preservation and interpretation of St. Anthony’s Catholic Church along with three buildings, to serve as the centerpiece for these heritage preservation activities. This potential historic district includes four physical elements: the church building built in 1935, the parochial school for religious education which began in 1920 with twenty-two students, the Rectory or Priest’s House built in 1928, and the Family Center, or the Sisters’ House, built in 1922. This historic district serves as the centerpiece for the interpretation of the Catholic history of the region, and the physical spaces will be used by future educators for the examination of various social studies and humanities topics including history, culture, etc. Three primary research questions of the dissertation: How can a church community that is more than one hundred years old in a small town in Arkansas ensure that its past lives on? What story does St. Anthony’s Church, the school, Rectory, Family Center, and the cemetery have to tell to future generations? What ideas do I want visitors to take away with them and who is likely to be interested? Through this research and the ideas for interpretation, the focus is on the preservation of the historic religious architecture of St. Anthony’s Church, its buildings and its cemetery that have survived in Weiner, Arkansas, and the stories of the Catholic Church and its people in Weiner, Arkansas, since the early 1900s.
Rights Management
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Sitzer, Mary Jean, "Preserving A Catholic Community: The History of St. Anthony's Catholic Church in Weiner, Arkansas" (2021). Student Theses and Dissertations. 297.
https://arch.astate.edu/all-etd/297
