2. St. Adalbert Church Complex - National Register Nomination

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United States Department of the Interior National Park Service / National Register of Historic Places Registration Form NPS Form 10-900 OMB No. 1024-0018 St. Adalbert Church Complex St. Joseph, IN Name of Property County and State Section 8 page 14 Krakówo. The fourth major Polish Roman Catholic parish in South Bend, St. Adalbert was constructed at the height of the pre-Depression economy when the majority working-class population could afford to collectively invest in a monumental church that not only served religious functions, but also commemorated Polish progress in America. For the new church, St. Adalbert Parish hired the leading Chicago religious architects Worthmann & Steinbach to design a church in the Gothic style. With steeples over 100 feet, St. Adalbert is the tallest and largest church in South Bend. A testament to the exuberance of Polish religion and culture, St. Adalbert represents the high aspirations of working-class Polish immigrants to transmit their culture in the United States, despite great adversity. By the time that church construction was completed, St. Adalbert was the crowning achievement of Indiana’s largest Polish population. The diversity of architectural styles present at St. Adalbert heightens the value of the complex, providing an open-air museum of immigrant and Midwestern architecture. Since its founding, St. Adalbert has remained faithful to the mission of serving the needs of first- and second-generation immigrants, in the process, remarkably preserving a complete religious complex with little alteration. As white-flight and suburbanization led to the closure and full or partial demolition of many Polish churches, St. Adalbert has survived intact. The complex demonstrates the transition from frugal immigrant beginnings in a combination church-school to a monumental cathedral- sized church, and developments in Catholic thought and religious design in the postwar period in the Mid-Century Modern Felician Convent. SOCIAL HISTORY For over a half century, St. Adalbert remained a rich center of Polish culture and politics. As the largest church in the city with Indiana’s largest Polish population, St. Adalbert attracted high profile visitors from the United States and Poland and organized multiple campaigns to support Polish war relief efforts. The first Polish bishop in the United States, Rt. Rev. Paul Rhode, traveled to South Bend to dedicate the cornerstone and again for the completed church. For the community, Rhode was more than a bishop, he was the head of the entire Polish church in the United States. Poles fought for decades within the Roman Catholic Church for równouprawnienie, or equality of rights, meaning equal representation respective to population in the church hierarchy which was then controlled by German and Irish bishops. The founding pastor of St. Adalbert, Rev. John Kubacki is a significant historical figure for his involvement with the temperance movement. Rev. Kubacki founded the national organization, the Abstinence League of Polish Priests at St. Adalbert in 1913 and traveled across Indiana and the country to preach against alcohol consumption. As most Polish Americans were strongly against the temperance movement due to the cultural role of alcohol, the Abstinence League of Polish Priests was an important example of how Polish priests absorbed and responded to the temperance movement and the influence of alcohol on social issues. Supported by the St. John the Evangelist Society, a men’s group that supported the temperance movement at St. Adalbert, Rev. Kubacki crusaded against alcohol and the saloons that characterized life in industrial South Bend.