Elizabeth Hayes Alvarez, “The Valiant Woman: The Virgin Mary in Nineteenth-Century American Culture” (UNC Press, 2016)

UNC Press Presents Podcast · Mar 16, 2017 · 1h 1m

When people think of the Virgin Mary in terms of American religious history, there is a tendency to focus on opposition. For instance, Catholic devotion to Mary on the one side, and Protestant critique of that devotion on the other side. However, while recognizing the real differences in Catholic and Protestant belief about Mary, in her new book, The Valiant Woman: The Virgin Mary in Nineteenth-Century American Culture (University of North Carolina Press, 2016), Dr. Elizabeth Hayes Alvarez, shows that such simple binaries are problematic. Through a careful study of newspaper accounts…