God Gave the Increase: The Americanization of Marcellin's Marist Project

God Gave the The Americanization of Marcellin’s Marist Project, is the story of the Marist Brothers in the United States from the formation of the independent United States Province in 1911, until the close of the Second World War in 1945. It is the story of the Brothers’ experience that, in many ways, paralleled that of other immigrant groups entering the United States during the early years of the twentieth century.

It is the story of the interplay of forces within the Marist Brothers’ General Administration which believed uniformity in all things to be essential to unity and those within the United States that led to the gradual emergence of a uniquely American expression of Marist life. It is the story of the evolution of a Marist Brothers’ Province that in 1917 described itself as a “French-Canadian Institute,” to one that, by the late 1940’s, saw itself as an American Province within the context of the wider international Marist Institute. Finally, it is the story of a faithful group of men who labored to keep the Marist Mission, To Make Jesus Know and Loved, particularly among young people, a reality in the United States.