According to numerous scholars and pundits, JFK's victory in 1960 symbolized America's evolution from a politically Protestant nation to a pluralistic one. The anti-Catholic prejudice that many blamed for presidential candidate Alfred E. Smith's crushing defeat in 1928 at last seemed to have been overcome. However, if the presidential election of 1960 was indeed a turning point for American Catholics, how do we explain the failure of any Catholic--in over forty years--to repeat Kennedy's accomplishment? In this exhaustively researched study that fuses political, cultural, social, and intellectual history, Thomas Carty challenges the assumption that JFK's successful campaign for the presidency ended decades, if not centuries, of religious and political tensions between American Catholics and Protestants.

According to numerous scholars and pundits, JFK's victory in 1960 symbolized America's evolution from a politically Protestant nation to a pluralistic one. The anti-Catholic prejudice that many blamed for presidential candidate Alfred E. Smith's crushing defeat in 1928 at last seemed to have been overcome. However, if the presidential election of 1960 was indeed a turning point for American Catholics, how do we explain the failure of any Catholic--in over forty years--to repeat Kennedy's accomplishment? In this exhaustively researched study that fuses political, cultural, social, and intellectual history, Thomas Carty challenges the assumption that JFK's successful campaign for the presidency ended decades, if not centuries, of religious and political tensions between American Catholics and Protestants.