The Emergence of a National Historic Site: St. Paul's Between the world wars
This is the text of an exhibition on display in the museum/visitors' center building at St. Paul's Church N.H.S., scheduled to be on view through January 2025.
A Special Role: St. Paul's Church and World War II
Text of an exhibition that was on display in the museum at St. Paul's from Feburary 2019 through January 2023. As an introduction, we reproduce here the opening panel of the exhibition:
The St. Paul’s area struggled with many of the challenges that confronted American communities on the home front during World War II. But during the conflict of 1939-1945, the parish realized a heightened sense of importance. At the time, St. Paul’s was recognized as a church representing something special about American heritage. This identity was rooted in the historic significance of the site in shaping fundamental national values. While this vision was historically exaggerated, the contemporary conviction presented St. Paul’s as the originating point of some of America’s most prized values, enshrined in the first amendment to the Bill of Rights. Those freedoms acquired a particular relevance in a war confronting brute intolerance and fascism abroad. The wartime restoration of the church interior to its original 18th century appearance and designation of St. Paul’s as a national historic site emphasized this association with the Bill of Rights
The worldwide conflict and the largest mobilization of people and resources in American history impacted the community in a variety of ways. Many parishioners were among the 15 million men and women serving in the nation’s armed forces across several continents from 1941-1945, the years of actual American military involvement. The tense emotional saga of following the military service and welfare of those on active duty consumed the lives of local families. A special altar in the St. Paul’s sanctuary provided a religious vehicle for maintaining a connection to the young men and women serving in the war.
While these were particularized elements of the community’s wartime experience, St. Paul’s shared components of the national challenges of living in a country at war. With the tremendous focus on the resources needed for the war effort, shortages of basic commodities affected the daily lives of local residents. The war’s great surge in employment and wages actually led to vastly increased income and wealth. Scrap drives, periodic blackouts, air raid drills and the ubiquitous expectations of investing in the war effort through the purchase of bonds were regular reminders of the struggle, even though the actual fighting was remote.
We invite you to learn about these extraordinary times through this exhibition utilizing documents, prints, photographs, art work, artifacts and sounds. It was made possible by:
National Park Service/Department of the Interior
Society of the National Shrine of the Bill of Rights
New York Humanities
BCM Mt. Vernon
Intrigue on the Village Green:
The Election of 1733 at St. Paul's
Text of an exhibition that was on display in the visitors' center museum at St. Paul's from February 2015 - January 2017. It explored the background, event and consequences of a famous election at St. Paul's, one of the earliest documented elections in American history,
A Conservative Union Parish:
St. Paul's Church and the Civil War
Text, and image, of an exhibition, that was on display in the visitors' center mueum, at St. Paul's Church N.H.S., from February 2013 - January 2015. It was produced to help commemorate the sesquecentennial (150th anniversary) of the Civil War. The exhibition explores how the St. Paul's community faced the social, political and military challenges posed by the Civil War.
Chief Executives on the Village Green: St. Paul's and the Presidents
Text, and image, of an exhibition that was on display in the visitors' center museum at St. Paul's, from Feburary 2011 - January 2013. It explored the interesting and varied connections to St. Paul's of five Presidents, from Washington to F.D.R.