Living History Series: “Gathering Places: Religion and Community in the Modern City”

Attend on Zoom from the comfort of your home.

Join us on Zoom for a presentation by Loyola University Chicago History Professor Christopher D. Cantwell and his graduate students sharing their work on a new digital exhibition featuring selected faith-based communities in Rogers Park and West Ridge. The project incorporates both oral and written histories from multiple archival sources and uses spatial mapping software to create a timeline showing the history of Congregation K.I.N.S., United Church of Rogers Park, Living Water Community Church, Christ Church Chicago and St. Padre Pio Parish in West Ridge.

To create this new resource, students partnered with a local religious community over the course of a semester to document each group’s history and publish the stories online on a dynamic, map-based interface that allows visitors to explore the evolution of our community’s religious landscape over time.

Professor Cantwell is an Illinois native who received his Ph.D. in American history from Cornell University. He began his career in Chicago, eventually serving as assistant director of the Scholl Center for American History and Culture at the Newberry Library, where he helped develop digital augmentations for the library’s public programs. After time at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, he returned to Chicago to join the faculty at Loyola in 2022.