Doctoral Dissertation
The American Catholic Diocesan Labor Schools
An Examination of Their Influence on Organized Labor in Buffalo and Cleveland
This doctoral dissertation was completed in 2013 at Case Western Reserve University under the supervision of Professor John Grabowski. It examines the Catholic diocesan labor schools that operated in Buffalo and Cleveland from the late nineteenth century through the mid-twentieth century, asking how these institutions shaped the character of organized labor in two major industrial cities.
The dissertation makes three principal arguments. First, that labor schools were not simply catechetical institutions teaching workers what the Church thought about unions, but active educational programs that built the practical skills and organizational knowledge workers needed to participate effectively in collective bargaining. Second, that the Buffalo and Cleveland schools, while drawing on the same papal encyclicals and national networks, developed distinct local characters shaped by the specific ethnic compositions, industrial structures, and personalities of each diocese. Third, that the labor schools represented a broader strategy of Catholic Americanism: an effort to make Catholics fully integrated participants in American civic and economic life while maintaining their distinctly Catholic identity.
The research drew on diocesan archives in Buffalo and Cleveland, union records, institutional histories, and the published and unpublished writings of labor school founders, directors, and graduates. The dissertation is 379 pages.
Access
The dissertation is available open access through the OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center.
As of April 2026, the dissertation has been downloaded 2,508 times, making it one of the more widely circulated unpublished works in the field of American Catholic labor history.
Details
Degree: Ph.D. in History Institution: Case Western Reserve University Year: 2013 Advisor: John Grabowski Length: 379 pages Access: Open access, OhioLINK ETD
From Dissertation to Book
The scholarship developed in this dissertation eventually found its published form in Dr. Lubienecki's 2023 monograph The Americanization of Lay Catholics on Organized Labor, published by Edwin Mellen Press, as well as in his Journal of Catholic Education articles and his 2017 Ohio History piece on Cleveland.