Asserting Legitimacy, Maintaining Identity: The Religious Architecture of Mercer County, New Jersey

There are two churchscapes of Mercer County-one is defined by the city of Trenton and the near suburbs, and the other encompasses everything else-the small towns and hamlets to the north and east of the city. This book describes every surviving meetinghouse and church erected in the county before 1900. It is not simply an inventory of the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century churches, but an interpretation of the social and cultural forces operating, especially in the several decades following the Civil War. The nineteenth century witnessed a need for Catholic and middle European immigrants' churches to maintain a national identity and to assert their legitimacy in the social fabric of an increasingly prosperous county. Established denominations in Trenton responded by sponsoring missions, building chapels, and engaging nationally-known architects to design grander houses of worship in a desire to reassert their priority in matters of taste and piety.