IN THE SPRING OF 1919, MARGARET LONG presented a speech at a government-sponsored Americanization conference titled “Coordinating a Community.” Long was the director of field work for the National Catholic War Council (NCWC), an organization formed by US bishops in 1917 to coordinate the American Catholic response to World War I. The community in question was East St. Louis, Illinois, a small city whose industries had been pivotal to the war effort but had been torn apart by political corruption, labor strife and racial violence, culminating in major racial unrest in 1917. She spoke of a United States War Department initiative to create the War Civics Committee, where national organizations would connect with local interests to provide industrial welfare. Long explained that the NCWC would contribute by creating a community center staffed by Catholic laywomen called the National Catholic Community House. Long said nothing about how the house would address...
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