Thomas Rzeznik, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Department of History

Profile

Thomas Rzeznik specializes in American religious history, with a particular interest in the history of the Catholic community and the development of Catholic institutions in the United States. His courses are regularly cross-listed with the Catholic Studies Program at Seton Hall. He also enjoys teaching classes on the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, urban history, and environmental history.

He is currently preparing a book based on his dissertation, Spiritual Capital: Religion, Wealth, and Social Status in Industrial Era Philadelphia, which examines church responses to affluence and explores the influence wealthy individuals had within their local churches and broader denominations.

Education

• Ph.D., University of Notre Dame, 2006
• M.A., University of Notre Dame, 2003
• B.A., Fordham University, 2000

Publications and Academic Distinctions

• “ ‘Representatives of All that is Noble’:  The Rise of the Episcopal Establishment in Early Twentieth Century Philadelphia,”  Religion and American Culture (Winter 2009).
  “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 the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania, ed. David Contosta (forthcoming: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009).
  Finalist, Post-Doctoral Fellowship, Lilly Fellows Program in the Humanities and the Arts, Valparaiso University, 2006.
  Dolores Zohrab Liebmann Foundation, three-year, full-tuition fellowship with stipend, 2003-2006.
  Haverford College Quaker Collections, Gest Research Fellowship, July 2004.