Research article

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Folklore 115 (2004): 3–26

RESEARCH ARTICLE

“Bringing Perfection in these DifferentPlaces”: Father Divine’s VernacularArchitecture of Intention

Leonard Norman Primiano

Abstract

The Peace Mission Movement, an American intentional religious communityfounded by the Revd M. J. Divine, also known as “Father Divine,” expressedthrough an intentional use of architecture their own quest for a utopian perfec-tion of consciousness in America. What is especially significant about thisexpression of perfection is that they did not seek it by building environments oftheir own creation. Instead, the movement and its leader created a uniquereligious vernacular architecture not by architectural design, but by a spiritu-alised appropriation of existing spaces. Through purchasing, restoring, re-using,and preserving many different types of American domestic and commercialstructures, Father Divine and his followers developed a theology of materialculture and historic preservation that expressed a major theological perspectiveof their belief system—to spiritualise the material and to materialise the spiri-tual—all in the service of God and for the transformation of human nature.

Introduction

If one were asked to cite notable examples of religious material culture in theUnited States, the list would no doubt include the built environments of theAmerican utopian communities cited by Dolores Hayden in her classic study,Seven American Utopias: The Architecture of Communitarian Socialism, 1790–1975(1976). Examining the quest for spiritual perfection expressed in these distinctAmerican religious communities, Hayden includes the utopian architecture ofthe Shakers of Hancock, Massachusetts; the Mormons of Nauvoo, Illinois; theFourierists of Phalanx, New Jersey; the Perfectionists of Oneida, New York; theInspirationists of Amana, Iowa; the Union Colonists of Greeley, Colorado; andthe Cooperative Colonists of Llano del Rio, California. These sectarian groupsdeveloped models for what they believed to be perfect societies in America, acountry understood as destined by God to be a new Eden. [1]

Comprehensive as Hayden’s list is, attention needs to be given to an eighthperfectionist American intentional community: the International Peace MissionMovement. The Peace Mission—inspired by their founder and leader, the RevdM. J. Divine, also known as “Father Divine”—expressed through a vernaculararchitecture their own quest for a utopian perfection of consciousness in Amer-ica. The recognition, designation, and study of built environments as vernaculararchitecture by folklife scholars has centred on buildings, artefacts, and land-

ISSN 0015-587X print; 1469-8315 online/04/010003-24; Routledge Journals; Taylor & Francis Ltd 2004 The Folklore SocietyDOI: 10.1080/0015587042000192501

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4 Leonard Norman Primiano

scapes reflecting and sharing traditional conceptions, skills, and aesthetics of aparticular community (see Roberts 1972; Upton and Vlach 1986; Glassie 2000).Building typology and construction, however, which some readers may associ-ate with the study of vernacular architecture, is not the focus of this study. Thisarticle will emphasise the very act of everyday use that made and continues tomake Peace Mission structures “vernacular,” that is localised, negotiated, per-formed, re-created spaces. Buildings are not only artefacts of expressive culture,but important sites for the continuous enactment of culture in everyday life.What is especially significant about the Peace Mission’s expression of perfectionis that they did not seek perfection by building environments of their owncreation, but instead, in the words of Father Divine, they sought to “[bring]perfection” to structures already constructed. The movement created a uniquereligious vernacular architecture not by architectural design, but by a spiritu-alised appropriation of existing spaces. Such religious vernacular architectureexemplifies the dynamic nature of all buildings as objects open to the expressionof a religious belief system.

Through purchasing, restoring, re-using, and preserving many different typesof American architecture, Father Divine and his followers developed a theologyof material culture and historic preservation that expressed a major theologicalperspective of their belief system—to spiritualise the material and to materialisethe spiritual—all in the service of God and for the transformation of humannature. For as Father Divine preached at a Sunday service in New York City inthe evening of 15 November 1936, if a person kept positive ideas and spiritualthoughts in the mind and present physically, their benefits would naturallyreproduce material results:

By inspiration, information will come. By concentration, the reproduction will be put forthinto expression. The thing we vividly visualize, we tend to materialize, and that which wematerialize, if we materialize it in consciousness by consciously living in the recognition ofit, we will also Personify it (The New Day, 16 November 1991, 11).

This article examines not only the historical record of the Peace Mission’smaterialised consciousness, but addresses the still living religious community inPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, as it continues to uphold, celebrate, and enhanceFather Divine’s architectural ministry. Examining this movement through thelens of vernacular architecture reveals the unique relationship between thisreligious tradition, their faith, the American context, and the built and re-builtenvironment.

Father Divine and the Peace Mission

Who was Father Divine and what was this movement that created a uniquereligious architecture by intention and preservation instead of by design andconstruction? [2] Organised around the central figure of Father Divine, PeaceMission members believe this charismatic African American to be God. PeaceMission beliefs as uniquely formulated by Father Divine included aspects ofseveral religious ideologies influential in late nineteenth-century and earlytwentieth-century America: Adventist, Holiness, Roman Catholic, black church,storefront Christianity, and especially ideas from the New Thought movement

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Father Divine’s Vernacular Architecture of Intention 5

including Christian Science and the Unity School of Christianity. “He hadbecome convinced of the presence of God within each person and at the sametime continued to reflect on the connections between spiritual wholeness and alife with sufficient food and shelter and a modicum of human dignity” (Al-banese 1992, 209). Followers felt transformed by the presence of this mysticalleader and the seemingly miraculous abundance of food served at a typicalPeace Mission ritual occasion that he designated a “Holy Communion BanquetService.” This ritual feasting was central to Father Divine’s fame as he and hisfollowers dined, worshipped, sang, ecstatically danced, and praised God to-gether. [3] These public display events of the bounty of God’s spiritual andphysical harvest served a great variety of foods representative of the abundancereceived by followers through a life of faith and service to God, Father Divine(see Kephart’s description 1987, 94–9). [4] Many men and women becameadherents as a result of such material displays in the face of their experience ofurban poverty, especially through the years of the Great Depression when Fathercharged very little or what one could afford for the food. [5]

The origins of this celibate American religious movement can be traced toSayville, Long Island, New York, where Father Divine came to public attentionin the 1920s. He and his first wife, Penninah, who was also African American,purchased in cash an eight-room house as a home and worship space in apredominantly white residential area. [6] A permanent group gathered aroundFather Divine in this house and in the surrounding neighbourhood, and theylived a cooperative, communal lifestyle first in Long Island and later in Harlem,where the Peace Mission became a major force within the African Americancommunity.

Father Divine’s movement expanded beyond the United States to Canada,Australia, Panama, England, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, and his mod-els of community and the Banquet Service were extended there as well. Hissermons were translated and read in French and German throughout the 1930s.In New York City, and especially in Harlem, he commanded enormous spiritual,economic, and political influence and respect. A 1939 New York Times article on“this large Negro community” (“It’s Not All Swing In Harlem”) assessed:

Harlem’s intellectuals may deny the urge and decry the practice, but Harlem masses stillbelieve in churches … And … Father Divine … [is] the most significant and dynamic person-ality Harlem has known in the past two decades … Father Divine has linked production,distribution, and consumption. And there is no magic or voodoo about his hold upon hisfollowers. A big sign prominently displayed in the mission on 126th Street offers what manyconsider the best answer: “No true Divine follower on relief! Saved the City of New York$20,000,000 since 1932!” (Stewart 1939, 20).

The Divine Cooperative Plan

Father Divine claimed millions of dollars had been saved by the city because ofhis economic vision called the “Divine Cooperative Plan.” While Father Divine’sstandards for followers were strict, as he insisted on “an honest day’s work foran honest day’s pay,” moral standards were equally strict as Father bannedsmoking, drinking, gambling, swearing, and sexual relations among the follow-ers who were asked to live by his “International Modest Code.” He provided

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economic security in the form of lodging, food, and employment. Among hisprogrammes was the opening of free employment bureaus where the PeaceMission worked at finding jobs at no charge for any individual. Economic ideaswere a basic part of his overall principles and commonly found in his sermons,lectures, letters, and even church by-laws. [7] The reality of God’s economystressed individual independence but also saw the cause of humanity servedthrough a cooperative system of community sharing and community spendingof resources:

We usually have a-full and a-plenty to eat. That is the first thought, if you please. Plenty ofcomfort and convenience! Then the cost of living is cut from forty to seventy-five to eightypercent by MY Cooperative System and by unifying the people together, causing them tolove one another … There is a-plenty to do, a-plenty of labor, a-plenty of business anda-plenty of trade. All can be put into expression and be giving active service. If yourbusiness, profession, if your labor and your trade will become to be absolutely unselfish andwork cooperatively, the very Spirit of MY Presence will lift up a standard so effectively thatthe spirit of progressiveness will be in evidence among you, even as I have it amongourselves and among MY immediate staff (Father Divine 24 July 1940 n.d., 34).

The Peace Mission funded itself through a system of “profit-sharing—no Hoard-ing—no Graft or Greed” (Father Divine 7 February 1937 n.d., 42). Cash re-sources, Father Divine preached in a sermon, were to spread out in a ProfitSharing Plan throughout the movement:

But, by putting your means of exchange to work and putting it into circulation, causing it togo around according to the plan and purpose of God and man, then and there you are usingyour means of exchange for the purpose it was created. The means of exchange should beput into circulation, to cause you and others to be successful and prosperous. By so doing,you will be using your means of exchange according to the Gospel. Now isn’t thatWonderful? (Father Divine 7 February 1937 n.d., 42).

As a part of the Cooperative Plan, “true followers” would not accept any typeof government assistance from federal, state, or local sources, and especiallyrefused national programmes for “relief” from poverty established during the1930s. As employees, church members were to take no tips, gratuities, bribes, orgifts for services. No type of insurance was to be obtained, whether forautomobiles or homes, for theft, or for personal injury. [8] God, Father Divine,was the only source of compensation for property and personal possessions lostdue to fire and, certainly, was the only power to rely on to prevent suchhardships. All purchases of any kind or amount were to be made in cash. This“cash and carry system” included the refusal to purchase any need with apersonal cheque, on credit, or using any type of instalment plan. Father Divineset an example for his followers by always paying for properties in cash.Sometimes such payments were made in small bills, which were delivered tobanks in several suitcases for Father by followers.

Materialising the Spiritual

As membership in the Peace Mission grew, so obviously did the need for morespace. The press chronicled Father Divine and his movement throughout the1930s and 1940s (and until his death in 1965), drawing special attention to the

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movement’s acquisition of real estate in New York City and state, and later inPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania. [9] A major part of the economic principles thatFather Divine enacted and spoke about publicly to his followers and otherlisteners was the “private ownership of property honestly acquired.” In 1943,Father Divine succinctly synthesised his ideas on the importance of ownershipand prosperity in a sermon:

I believe in private ownership of enterprise; I believe in the private ownership of personaland real property, but I believe in you acquiring the private ownership of enterprise, orpersonal and of real property honestly. I do not believe in you taking advantage of othersto acquire your respective aim, but I do believe that a person who is qualified to advance andhas the skill and the ability to increase his holdings and even his ability to acquire more skilland more understanding, more professions and more trades. I believe in mass productionfrom every side! Aren’t you glad! (Father Divine 28 February 1943 n.d., 40–1).

After followers had satisfactorily paid all past debts and stabilised their personalfinances, they were guided not to invest in stocks and bonds, which wascontrary to Peace Mission teachings, but to contribute any savings into propertyownership. This component of the Plan consisted of using the collective re-sources of members to purchase at a reduced price urban, suburban, even ruralproperties in need of redevelopment “to be used for the advancement ofFATHER DIVINE’S Work and Mission, thereby putting the money to exchangefor the common good of humanity” (Mother Divine 1982, 23). Father Divinewould then direct those members or “co-workers” who worked closely withinthe organisation of the Peace Mission to renovate the properties for use asresidences for members or as hotels, restaurants, grocery stores, barber shops,garages, income tax and secretarial services, as well as centres for domesticservice.

In the 1930s and 1940s, Peace Mission cooperative farms were established inWestern New York including a thirty-two-acre self-contained community inKingston, New York, known as “the Promised Land.” From these orchards andfields, produce was soon supplied to the Mission’s urban businesses (New YorkTimes 7 August 1938, 62).

This work of restoration and re-use had its roots in the monistic worldview ofthe Peace Mission, a perspective on the single governing principle of realityshared by such American metaphysical movements as Unity and ChristianScience—all related to the nineteenth-century spiritual movement known as“New Thought.” This non-dualistic view of what is “really real” can be observedin the words of one Peace Mission song, “There’s No Heaven In The Sky.” Thepresent reality is heaven, and the development of perfect consciousness in thislife is possible. Not only would such a consciousness result in a source ofspiritual supply, but also an abundance of all material needs.

Father Divine’s truth transcends the material world, but the material worldstill bears the reflection of that spiritual transcendence. Such a connection withthe “universal mind substance” allows individuals to re-create and rebuild theirlives whether a direct follower of Father Divine or someone just touched by hismessage. These were powerful ideas to Depression-era American urban poor inHarlem and other communities of African Americans, referred to as “dark-com-plected people” due to Father Divine’s avoidance of racial references, as well as

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to “light-complected” individuals in the United States, Canada, Europe, andAustralia. This theological perspective was often related to and amplified byFather Divine in messages concerning Peace Mission buildings. In a September1938 statement to his followers gathered at Jamaica, Queens, he elaborated onhow the restoration of buildings was connected to the restoration of the person:

Then I say, you can see these old buildings in different communities that were run down,dilapidated, and absolutely good for nothing, as you may term them to be, as God is theCenter of Attraction and a Standard of Perfection expressed, He demonstrates it by bringingperfection in these different places … the perfection of competence … the perfection of truth,both in the minds and the hearts and lives of the children of men, and in the surroundings;renovating old material, natural buildings, remodeling and renovating them, causing themto be comfortable and convenient, causing them to have all improvements for the comfortand convenience of the inhabitants of such buildings a sample and an example for others(The New Day 12 September 1938, 13).

Father Divine had no reservations about re-using the buildings acquired fromother denominations such as Roman Catholics or Baptists. No matter a build-ing’s original purpose, once it is consecrated to the service of humanity itresonates with a positive vibration that is experienced daily. He explained in1947 in a private conversation in his office at the Circle Mission Church on BroadStreet in Philadelphia that:

the advantage of the sacredness of the edifices or the edifice there [is] because it has beenunder the jurisdiction of a religious organisation that is highly admired by MYSELF and MYfollowing … we feel the atmosphere there as we do not feel or would not feel automaticallyin the beginning of a place until it is fully consecrated—if it has not been consecrated byothers (The New Day 16 August 1947, 13).

Of course, any property could be converted to an “evangelical” purpose, andFather Divine would proudly announce recent acquisitions in his messages atHoly Communion Banquet Services:

And making this an occasion of the season, through MY Condescension to present MYSELFand appear in Person, I have come to call your attention to the Blessings of those of theFollowers who have recently purchased 22 E. Kinney Street [Newark, N.J.]—having pur-chased it, renovated it and have now set it up for the Dedication and Consecration to theService of God; for when you serve yourself and others ARIGHT you serve your fellowmen!(22–3 November 1945 message; printed in The New Day 30 November 1991, 3).

All Peace Mission properties, and living quarters, were spiritualised throughtheir cleanliness (see 16–7 February 1950 message; printed in The New Day 16April 1983, 5) and safety, and marked by their ubiquitous adornment withframed photographs of Father and Mother Divine and mottos of the Mission inevery room. Such preparations marked a building’s dedication and consecrationto the service of God. [10] Properties with Banquet Rooms still stand preparedwith clean plates, glasses, and silverware for a Service, always with the expec-tation of Father’s personal presence and with the belief in Father Divine’sspiritual presence. Father Divine maintained offices in all major church proper-ties, and he would unexpectedly arrive at these extensions to visit with staff.Large properties were important, but Divine acknowledged the spiritual

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significance of followers’ domestic environments as well. In the same Novembersermon, he proclaimed:

I ABUNDANTLY and BOUNTIFULLY BLESS YOU ALL—causing your homes as selectedand purchased and owned, to no longer be houses as they have been, of VICE and Crimeand SIN, but DEDICATED as HOUSES of PRAYER, where you in your own Homes will beable to WORSHIP GOD under your own Vine and Fig Tree where no man can make youashamed! … I AM causing every Home, at least, I shall cause every home to be as aCHURCH! Aren’t you glad! … To be a CHURCH for PRAISE and WORSHIP, where youWORSHIP GOD by DAY and by NIGHT in all you SAY and in all you DO! (22–3 November1945 message; printed in The New Day 30 November 1991, 3).

Father Divine in Philadelphia

In 1942, Father Divine left New York City due to legal difficulties involving amonetary judgement won in a lawsuit by a former member (see New York Times4 January 1940, 44; 11 December 1947, 27). He settled permanently in Philadel-phia, Pennsylvania (New York Times 20 July 1942, 15), beyond the judicial reachof New York State authorities. Several years after his first wife died, he took asecond wife, a young “light-complected” Canadian, who had worked as one ofhis personal secretaries. She came to be known within the movement as SweetAngel or Mother Divine (see Primiano 1998). Their marriage in 1946 (New YorkTimes 8 August 1946, 20), although declared spiritual and celibate, provoked fearand anger within the racist climate of post-World War II America and evensurprise within the movement itself.

Father Divine died in 1965, what Peace Mission members understand as thephysical departure of God from this plane of existence to remain in the spiritualplane. The second Mother Divine or “Mother in the Second Body,” as referencedby followers who believe in the possibility of soul transference and reincar-nation, was left as the visible leader of the movement. In 1964, the year beforeFather Divine died, the New York Times again highlighted the movement, notinghow Father Divine had amassed an estimated real-estate portfolio worth $20million (13 September 1964, 53). Almost forty years later, the Peace Missioncontinues to exist mainly in the city of Philadelphia, living in community,although reduced in membership, and still maintaining a significant number ofreal-estate holdings.

When Father Divine moved his congregation to Philadelphia from Harlem inthe early 1940s, the Peace Mission began to sell off its New York City propertiesand purchase a series of commercial and residential buildings in the movement’snew centre of activity. Always a wise real-estate investor and innovativeentrepreneur, the Mission’s physical presence in Philadelphia expanded over thenext twenty years to include three hotels in the city (as well as two hotels innorthern New Jersey) and many other properties financed by the followers andclassified by the Peace Mission into “Churches,” “hotels catering to the generalpublic,” “hotels exclusively for followers,” and “homes and businesses” (proper-ties listed in Mother Divine 1995; reprinted 1999, 22). Several grand examples ofPhiladelphia Victorian architecture were acquired, and these buildings havebeen maintained and, in some cases, restored to pristine condition during theadministration of Mother Divine, who still maintains an active schedule. Mother

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Divine has worked to retain Father Divine’s standards and her interest inupholding Father Divine’s economic policies involving the sacred importance ofproperty and business ownership were reflected in her 1982 book, The PeaceMission Movement:

The Peace Mission has always served the community through its hotels, cafeterias, foodmarkets, dress shops, barber shops, gas stations, shoe repairing and dry cleaning establish-ments and such services that provide the necessities of life at lower prices than can be foundelsewhere. This is “preaching the gospel in dollars and cents” as Father Divine would say,by giving the best for the least. Therefore HE considered these businesses places to be moresacred than the churches (Mother Divine 1982, 29).

Many of the Philadelphia properties of the Peace Mission are in the centre-citydistrict and are presently used to house Peace Mission members, but there werebuildings used throughout the city’s neighbourhoods at one time. Father Divinesaw something in such unappreciated buildings that other Philadelphians didnot. It should be remembered that such alterations were done not in an era ofthe historic preservation of grand urban Victorian construction. When firstpurchased in the 1940s and 1950s, many citizens of Philadelphia saw suchbuildings as architectural monstrosities that needed to be replaced. Alwaysinterested in promoting the internationality of the Mission, Father Divinedubbed one Victorian urban mansion at 1430 North Broad Street in NorthPhiladelphia, which served as a sorority or a residence for female communitymembers visiting from other countries, the “Divine International House.” Thehouse itself was designed by Will E. Decker and built circa 1890 for lumberyardowner Charles E. Ellis, who was a real-estate developer. With a RomanesqueRevival exterior style, the interior has extensive hand-carved woodwork in theshape of mermaids and mythical animals. The staircase is done in what architec-tural historian, Robert M. Skaler, has described as the Viking-revival style andthe interiors are eclectic showing Japanese, Italian Renaissance, Turkish, Ro-manesque, and Colonial styles. A remarkable vernacular touch is the response ofthe Peace Mission, which purchased the property in 1953, to the more immodestelements in the house’s interior decoration that do not reflect Father Divine’smodesty code, which held that male and female followers not even ride in thesame automobiles (with the exception of Father Divine, himself), that marriedguests not be permitted to reside in the same hotel rooms, and that Father andMother Divine not even share the same quarters in their residences. 1430 BroadStreet contains a unique decorative feature even for the Victorians, let alonemid-twentieth-century followers of Father Divine: three hand-carved mermaidsin the first-floor of the town house were originally rendered with exposedbreasts. Instead of destroying these works of art utterly inappropriate in a PeaceMission residence according to their beliefs, the religious community negotiatedthe building’s historical value with their aesthetic of propriety. As one followerproudly explained, they “converted them to our [the Peace Mission’s] standard”by having followers sew proper cloth coverings for the mythical creatures(Figure 1). While removing the immodest architectural elements from their sight,they still preserved the integrity of the original domestic interior.

Approximately three blocks from this structure on Sixteenth Street lies anotherproperty maintained and preserved by the Peace Mission, what they have called

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Figure 1 Clothed Mermaid, Staircase, Divine International House, 1430 North Broad Street,Philadelphia. Photograph by Katie Reing.

Father Divine’s Bible Institute of Philadelphia. This building is attributed to JohnMcArthur, Jr. and was erected between 1881 and 1883 for the owner of theDisston Saw Company. Of its many splendid rooms, the library has especiallyoutstanding woodwork and a fireplace with tiles depicting Shakespeareancharacters. The various rooms of the house, in careful states of preservation,stand as impressive waiting rooms for guests who come to attend yearly HolyCommunion Banquet Services there, especially those honouring the weddinganniversary of Father and Mother Divine. A large room in the rear of thestructure, which was added by a caterer who owned the building in the 1920s,had been used by Father Divine for Banquet Services and was renovated withnew paint and light fixtures in time for the fiftieth wedding anniversarycelebration in 1996. In the 1950s, this building was a part of a complex of PeaceMission properties in this area used for Bible instruction and significantly for the

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production of the movement’s newspaper, The New Day, which was published asa weekly until 1992.

Along Philadelphia’s main street stands another intact Victorian domesticenvironment, the Fraternity Peace Mission Evangelical Home at 507 South BroadStreet. Designed in 1882 by George T. Pearson, this structure was originallyowned by J. Dundas Lippincott and the Peace Mission purchased the propertyin 1943. It is an eclectic design rooted in the Queen Anne style, and the lastremaining residential mansion in this vital part of the city. As elegant as thisstructure is as a residence for men, it also exemplifies the multi-task orientationof buildings within the movement. In this case, this fraternity is also used tohouse church archives, especially Father Divine’s ministry of sermons, inter-views, and letters, many of which were published and republished in The NewDay. This building is found only blocks from John McArthur’s elaborate Victo-rian City Hall, the very centre of the city’s financial and commercial core. PeaceMission buildings were purchased in many different neighbourhoods and envi-ronments including white residential, African American urban, city commercial,segregated suburban, and isolated rural areas.

Father Divine’s use of church buildings for a variety of purposes comple-mented the practice found in American denominations in the pre-World War Iand post-World War I period of viewing such buildings as income-producinginstitutional and mission plants. Most denominations started promoting suchendeavours as part of a church efficiency movement that stressed sound fiscalpolicy for congregations. Elbert Conover’s 1928 text on church building, Buildingthe House of God, suggests that:

Many existing buildings can be remodeled to enable the church to render a far moresatisfactory program than has previously been possible … In some sections, particularly incongested centers, there is need for church plants in which social service and educationalactivities require a large proportion of the space … Sometimes, in order to maintain religiouswork in a city center where land values are exceedingly excessive, it seems necessary todevote a large part of the building space to income-producing purposes (Conover 1928,193–5).

Father Divine adopted a policy of church efficiency, but not one that concen-trated on the construction of new church properties. He and his followers weresolely interested in the restoration and re-use of older buildings for PeaceMission purposes, as was well exemplified by their use of a former PennsylvaniaRailroad Y.M.C.A. building at Forty-First and Westminster Street in WestPhiladelphia. Dubbed the Unity Mission Church, the building is the work ofarchitect Thomas Lonsdale with a construction cost of $100,000 in 1896. Thefollowers purchased the abandoned and derelict property in 1943, as well asadjacent residential properties to house members in apartments, also establish-ing a Peace Mission Co-op Grocery Store to meet the needs of their ownrestaurant, their followers, and the neighbourhood. The Peace Mission propertyincluded a cafeteria, public spaces and sitting rooms, a banquet room, andauditorium for services. The building’s original gymnasium space and kitchenswere adapted for Church use. Children from this African American neighbour-hood, for example, would often play in the safety of the building’s gymnasium(see Skaler 2002, 115). This large building was sold in 2000, but near-by

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properties were converted into the Peace Mission Evangelical Home in the late1970s, which remains a personal care facility open to Peace Mission members.

Hotels owned and managed by the Mission not only contained guest rooms,but also included a public restaurant or cafeteria, rooms for co-workers, anauditorium for daily religious meetings and songfests, as well as large halls forHoly Communion Banquet Services. The 246-room Divine Lorraine Hotel (soldin 2001) on North Broad Street functioned to meet multiple needs, as did the 150room Divine Tracy Hotel, 20 South Thirty-Sixth Street adjacent to the Universityof Pennsylvania campus in West Philadelphia (New York Times 19 May 1949, 31).Built in 1901 and designed by architects Milligan and Webber, the former TracyApartment House was purchased in 1949 for $200,000 in cash. This still-operat-ing hotel open to the public at rates much lower than a conventional hotelcontains offices of “Peace Mission Enterprises,” which until recently includedtyping, notary, laundry, dry-cleaning, and income-tax services. The KeyflowerDining Room served meals at the Hotel until 2000, with specific macrobioticdishes prepared beginning in 1980, when Mother Divine re-invented the diets offollowers to include more healthy foods. Although the public kitchen is nowclosed, there continues to be a frequently used, large Holy Communion BanquetRoom in this building, fashioned out of its former bar and lounge areas.Adhering to the Modest Code, of course, married couples cannot reside in thesame rooms, men and women remain segregated in terms of gender, and guestsmust be met in the hotel’s lobby. Notably, like all Peace Mission properties, noracial segregation is allowed, making these institutions distinctive in the qualityof their services and for their inclusion of members of all races in a period whenAfrican Americans were not permitted to reside in certain urban hotels in theUnited States (see Skaler 2002, 29).

One of the earliest Peace Mission building purchases in Philadelphia was theCircle Mission Church, Home and Training School of Pennsylvania on SouthBroad Street, formerly the Hotel Dale, purchased in 1939. This complex ofbuildings at Broad and Catherine Streets was developed in approximately 1905into one property from twin Victorian homes built in 1889, with the ChurchGospel Mission Home built as an adjacent structure in 1897 (see Skaler 2003, 19).All of these buildings were purchased in 1939 and were transformed into FatherDivine’s headquarters and personal residence upon his 1942 arrival in Philadel-phia. A large public dining room, dress shop, barber shop, library, classrooms,followers’ rooms, multiple kitchens, and a Holy Communion Banquet roomcould be found in this large site, which still accommodates the residential andspiritual activities of members. Father Divine used a large second-floor space ashis personal office where he would work with his many secretaries dictatingmessages, answering correspondence, conducting business, and “interviewing”visitors who sought to speak to him. This front room had windows and a largebalcony facing 764–772 South Broad Street, just ten blocks from the city’sbusiness, commercial, and governmental core; Father Divine employed thebalcony as a public stage for appearances to his followers as well as the generalpublic. He, for example, used this public space to present his new wife, SweetAngel, as Mother Divine to gathered followers and passers-by in August 1946(Figure 2).

Such holdings served a multitude of ambitious purposes, continuously teach-

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Figure 2 Father Divine, Mother Divine, Father Divine’s staff on balcony of Circle Mission Church,Home and Training School of Pennsylvania, 764–772 South Broad Street, Philadelphia. Photographby Circle Mission Church Archives.

ing the followers a framework of empowerment: spiritual, economic, and, ofcourse, racial. With respect to the latter, Father Divine championed the inte-gration of America and the application of pressure on Americans to apply theracial standards of the Bill of Rights of the US Constitution to all citizens. Toforce and remind Americans “to enact the Bill,” as members would say, PeaceMission members integrated everything: Church cars (Father’s automotive en-tourage was often highlighted by alternating black and white-colouredlimousines “enacting the Bill” down a highway or through a city), Churchresidences, and especially the Holy Communion Banquet Services where mem-bers sat in an integrated pattern projecting out from Father and Mother Divine’splaces at the head of the table. In a book review of a work on Father Divine,historian Oscar Handlin recognised the relationship of Divine’s plan for thedistribution of goods and services to his policy of integration: “To the appeal ofprovidential supply amid universal want, Father Divine joined absolute intransi-gence on the racial issue. To the residents of the Harlem slums the demand notfor equal but identical treatment was indeed God-like” (Handlin 1953, 14).

The Mount of the House of the Lord

Father Divine’s vernacular architecture of intention as well as what could becalled his theology of historic preservation is most prominent in the restoration,preservation, and re-use of Woodmont (Figure 3), a Victorian Manor Housefound in the exclusive Main Line suburb of Gladwyne, just outside of Philadel-

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Figure 3 Woodmont, Spring Mill and Woodmont Roads, Gladwyne, Pennsylvania. Photograph byPeace Mission Archives.

phia. Designed by the Quaker architect William L. Price and completed in 1894for the industrialist Alan Wood at an estimated cost of $1,000,000, Woodmont islocated at the highest point along the West bank of the Schuylkill River.Architectural historian George E. Thomas in his volume on Price notes:

the house was constructed of the local stone trimmed with limestone and finished on theinterior by many of Philadelphia’s principal decorative artists. The estate included its ownpower plant as well as stables, barns, and extensive gardens … Woodmont … was animmediate triumph, imitated by other architects, and never eclipsed in the Philadelphia areain terms of ornateness and costliness. Especially astonishing was the five-story-high greathall rising to the peak of the immense tile-clad roof (Thomas 2000, 66, 265).

The design of the estate’s Manor House was itself influenced by “Biltmore,”George W. Vanderbilt’s sprawling house in Asheville, North Carolina. FatherDivine received word about the structure through a follower who worked as adomestic for the elderly owner, and he purchased the seventy-seven-acre estateand house for $75,000 in cash in 1952. The New York Times indicated at the timeof its dedication that “the followers of Father Divine … restored it to thegrandeur of its early days themselves. The restoration work, real estate expertssaid, would have cost at least $250,000 had it been done by private contractors”(11 September 1953, 98).

Woodmont represents the pinnacle of Father Divine’s perfectionist theology oftransformation. Describing this idea of change through religious intention in amessage at the Banquet Service at the Rockland Palace, at 155th Street andEighth Avenue in New York City, it is possible to apply his meaning to both therenewed lives of followers and renewed lives of buildings touched by hismovement:

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I am transforming the people by the renewing of their minds! I AM changing their minds!As well as I AM reforming them mentally, I AM actually TRANSFORMING them by therenewing of their minds! They have a different mind and different nature and differentcharacteristics! They do not have the characteristics they had before they knew Me! Theythink, they act, they speak and they live and they even feel different, because they are NEWcreatures, according to the Gospel! Aren’t you glad! (The New Day 1 January 1942, 15).

He taught his followers that heaven can be found presently on the earth and thatthe spiritual could transform the material anywhere. Again in New York City,he preached: “Rest from doubts and fears! Rest from superstition! No longerimagining Heaven geographically, but the recognition of GOD’S ACTUALHEAVEN in all places wheresoever you live Evangelically and are subject totrue Evangelism, and angelism manifested in your system” (15 November 1936;reprinted The New Day 16 November 1991, 11).

The Peace Mission purchased Woodmont as it was literally about to bedestroyed for the cost to the owner of levelling the building. Dubbing therestored estate, “the Mount of the House of the Lord,” Father Divine saw theproperty fulfilling his principle that “there is abundance in virtue”—that theaccumulation of virtuous acts results in great things for the community. Wood-mont became one of the grandest projects of Father Divine, a project taken upand continued by his wife: to establish a place of beauty and spiritual perfection.As he had explained in 1942: “Then I say, VISUALIZE the PERFECT PICTUREand reproduce it, materialize it and multiply it, and live in the CONSCIOUS-NESS of GOD’S Presence!” (The New Day 1 January 1942, 15). Today, Woodmonthas been maintained not only because the Peace Mission appreciates the heritageof American architecture, but because they feel that within the beauty ofarchitectural perfection, and perfection of landscape, followers and visitors mayexperience the abundance of God and further seek a unity with the conscious-ness of God. A 1999 description of the spiritual meaning of the propertypublished by the movement extols it as a living “Garden of Eden,” as the fusionof heaven and earth: “The mysterious, majestic beauties of Woodmont have beenextolled to the highest—its picturesque Grounds and its intriguing Buildings.These are obvious to any eye. But there is a deep, Spiritual Magnitude ofWoodmont also, which is apparent only to the Inner Eye” (The New Day DigestSeptember 1999 1, 13). In re-inventing the secular estate to fit into Peace Missiontheological perspective, Woodmont also was described by Father Divine on 24June 1953 as a new Temple of God; citing Isaiah 2, 2–3 and Micah 4, 1–2, hepreached:

… the repetition of history … as it was with the building of the Temple of the Lord inJerusalem, in Mount Moriah, so it is in the rebuilding of the Temple of the Lord … atPhiladelphia in Woodmont (The New Day 15 September 1979, 45; reprinted in Mother Divine1982, 59).

The preservation and beautification of this property has had a notable influenceon the expressive culture and general aesthetics of the movement. The hallmarksof the “Divine style” under Father Divine were bounty, community, integration,and a nationalist spiritual ethos called “Americanism.” Influenced by theirWoodmont theology and under the leadership of Mother Divine, this aesthetichas been expanded to include safety, graciousness, orderliness, tradition, stasis,

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respectability, and propriety. [11] A Victorian Quaker aesthetic may haveinspired the creation of Woodmont, but the Peace Mission aesthetic has main-tained it for fifty years. Woodmont stands as the embodiment of Father Divine’sperfectionist utopian community, and with its workshops, garages, orchards andfields it represents the synthesis of Divine’s communal lifestyle. The property’spristine condition is the marriage of Father Divine’s emphasis on the principleof perfection (The New Day 21 May 1942, 50) to his understanding of an activistuse of the material world to express that perfection. This union encapsulatesFather Divine’s theology of material culture where a sacramentalism of materialusefulness is the primary objective of a world created by God and re-created,renewed, and restored by humans influenced by God.

In a celebratory meeting after midnight on 13 September 1953 in the audi-torium of the Unity Mission Church on 41st Street in the city, he directlyaddressed to his followers the meaning of the dedication and consecration ofWoodmont from a theological and racial perspective:

We know you all know a Standard of morality, of modesty, of Holiness, of Virtue and ofHonesty, all of these attributes and qualities have been established and that is second tonone! But as an abstract expression we are happy to say, the materialization of these thingsis taking place in our experience … I have broken that line of demarcation and brought anend to localization! That’s why you have the privilege and the pleasure to go up to theMount of the House of GOD. And you may come in the front door! …There was a gentlemancalled ME up or wrote ME whichever, and said he was once the chauffeur for one of theowners there. Even though being a chauffeur, he was not permitted to go in the front door!I AM not holding no grudge nor emphasizing anything that one should hold against the tideof that time, and the seasons of the time that brought about segregation and discrimination,inequality, oppression, and suppression because I had not brought an end to it as I havenow! He testified the other day that he was happy to be there and he could come in the frontdoor! Even though it has been renovated and made new—some declare it’s much better thanit was before—you can come in and act and look like people—the kind of people God made!(printed in The New Day 5 September 1992, 3–4).

His interest in acquiring grand properties in which his followers might haveworked as servants at one time was not lost on Father Divine. The use of suchresidences by his followers was a social and cultural irony that appealed to himthroughout his ministry.

In September 1999, in a ceremony at Woodmont, the property was dedicatedas a National Historic Landmark by the United States National Park Service.This occasion marked for Peace Mission members a zenith of public acceptanceand respectability, not only of their property, but of Father Divine’s ideas ofuniversal consciousness. This celebration of ownership, preservation, and trans-formation of the house’s original purpose signalled the triumph of the principlesof racial equality and integration that Father Divine championed.

As the movement grows older and its membership is greatly reduced, MotherDivine is faced with the challenging task of seeing that these buildings are soldto owners and developers who appear harmonious with Father Divine’s ideals.In Peace Mission belief, if a person has not fully melded into the consciousnessof God during his or her lifetime that individual will most likely be reincarnatedback into the world. For this reason, Mother Divine seems content to let someof these buildings, which have been used for a time for God’s purpose, to “pass

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off and pass on” into another incarnation of service. The only exception will beWoodmont where Father Divine is himself buried and where his wife intends tobuild a library and study centre. At the present moment, his tomb with itsgranite walls imitating the shape of his Woodmont office, his red marblesarcophagus in the shape of the Ark of the Covenant, and the impressive bronzefigure-filled doors (created by the sculptor Donald DeLue, see Howlett 1990,159–65), called the “Portal of Life Eternal,” represents the most significant andoriginal design statement the Peace Mission has ever made (see description inMother Divine 1982, 60–4). The Shrine to Life, as the tomb is designated, isMother Divine’s feminised new creation and aesthetic statement joining Father’senvironment of re-creation and re-use.

A Vernacular Architecture of Intention

The material culture of the Peace Mission invites both followers and non-follow-ers into the perfectionist worldview of Father Divine. Followers, through avernacular architecture of intention, produced within existing structures aunique religious environment best understood through an appreciation of itsusefulness. Henry Glassie, in his textbook on vernacular architecture, remindsreaders that vernacular architecture should imply not only work on housingtypes or the classification of historical structures, but it should be a constantreflection on buildings’ usefulness and their interpretability as creative, artistic,expressive texts illuminating individuals and communities. “Architecture in-trudes in the limitless expanses of space, dividing it into useful, comprehensiblepieces … We call buildings vernacular to highlight the cultural and contingentnature of all building” (Glassie 2000, 21). [12] Father Divine’s approach toarchitecture was built on an idea of the potential of all buildings to aid humanbeings, to take their contingency and turn them into something powerful,contestational, against the status quo, and positive. These structures aided FatherDivine in the building of an economically viable religious organisation; they alsowere the foundation of his plan for improving and empowering his followers asfree, self-sufficient human beings. The purchase of any particular building wasbased on its potential for re-adaptation as habitat, business, and church. Owner-ship and re-use also worked to achieve another goal as symbols of economicviability and freedom of expression within American religious, social, andfinancial constraints. “Architecture gives physical form to claims and names, tomemories and hopes. As a conceptual activity, architecture is a matter offorming ideas into plans, plans into things that other people can see. Architec-ture shapes relations between people. It is a kind of communication” (Glassie2000, 22).

Father Divine was a master of communication; as an orator using the tra-ditional sermon-style of the African American preacher, he would dazzle andmesmerise his audiences with the length of his unscripted homilies, the passionof their delivery, and the fluidity and liberation of their New Thought ideas.Father Divine also recognised the power of material culture as a tool forexpression. He knew that actions at times spoke louder than words, especiallyto a general public who might not be exposed to his words, but certainly couldwitness his works. In 1948, soon after the followers purchased the Lorraine Hotel

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at the notable intersection of Broad Street and Fairmount Avenue in NorthPhiladelphia, Father Divine marked the new property with enormous signs highatop the eleven-storey structure, replacing the previous roof-top “Hotel Lor-raine,” which faced north and south. He did not re-name the building, “FatherDivine’s Hotel,” as one might expect, but he spiritualised the former name byadding his own and consecrating it: “The Divine Lorraine Hotel” (Figure 4).There his re-invention of this business stood as a beacon marking the northernsector of the city, announcing his presence in two directions of this thoroughfareas if the eyes of God were now literally observing the actions of all below andabove. Father Divine understood the importance of such public display andhow, with the help of his followers, he could re-make even the most unyieldingcity to function for a positive purpose whether in Harlem, Newark, or Philadel-phia. The potential of buildings in those cities related not only to the specificindividuals who lived and worked in them, but radiated out to the widercommunity at large. Father Divine created urban networks reaching out fromthe inner city all the way to the suburbs to demonstrate and insist on racialequality and justice.

Dell Upton’s groundbreaking history of American architecture is especiallynoteworthy for its integration of the canon of acknowledged American builtenvironments with modest structures. By integrating such diverse examples, hearticulates the story of architecture as vernacular culture. Significantly, Uptonmakes a point to stress the importance of looking at how American architectureactually functions in everyday life: “Buildings are changed in construction andthey are changed in use. They are used differently from the way they wereintended and they are appreciated or experienced differently from the wayarchitects or patrons might have imagined” (1998, 12). In an earlier article, Uptonintroduces and explains this point:

Once introduced into the landscape, the identity of a building and the intentions of itsmakers are dissolved within confusing patterns of human perception, imagination, and use.Consequently, the meaning of a building is determined primarily by its viewers and users.This process of creation goes on long after the crew leaves the site; it never stops. Everystructure contains several different buildings as imagined by different segments of its public.None of these is necessarily consistent with the others, nor do any of them bear anynecessary relationship to the intention of designer, builder, or client. Yet so much ofarchitectural history is directed toward identifying the pure form, the original condition, thearchitect’s intention. How relatively unimportant these are! (Upton 1991, 197).

As architectural historian George E. Thomas has noted, there is little doubt thatWilliam Price wanted to attract attention to the house he designed for AlanWood, Jr. Over ninety years later, Woodmont retains its effect. A convert to thePeace Mission once remarked at a Holy Communion Banquet Service that thefirst time he saw Woodmont, Father Divine’s “Mount of the House of the Lord,”he said to himself: “I know if God had a house that had to be it.” In preservingthe Woodmont estate, Father Divine was not only interested in saving andrestoring a significant piece of American architectural heritage. RestoringWilliam Price’s creation was secondary to the restoration of his many AfricanAmerican followers to full and equal status in their own country. What betterway could there be to make points of contestation and re-creation than by

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Figure 4 Divine Lorraine Hotel, Broad Street and Fairmount Avenue, Philadelphia. Photograph byPeace Mission Archives.

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purchasing and reclaiming one of the most illustrious examples of materialculture in one of the wealthiest, whitest, and most segregated communities onthe US East Coast for the “dark-complected” God of the city and his followersto enjoy, then also creating a theological perspective on its significance? Suchwas the complexity of Father Divine’s “process of creation” prompted by abuilding and its restoration but moving out to social and theological implica-tions. Joseph Sciorra discussing Puerto Rican vernacular architecture in NewYork City recognises how this particular community created “local landscapes ofempowerment” where “knowledge and skills developed amidst … destruction[and] are employed in transforming the rubble and ruin in a conscious rebuild-ing of urban communities.” Citing the work of bell hooks, Sciorra explains:

It is within this imposed economic, political and social marginality that poor people of colorstruggle to change the existing conditions in which they live, by creating spaces of their owndesign that serve as locations of resistance to a system of inequality and domination (1996,61).

A consideration of Father Divine’s vernacular architecture of intention withoutoffering a political, cultural, and racial reading of these material texts onAmerican religion is obviously impossible. Upton’s survey of American architec-ture is especially sensitive to the way buildings grapple with issues of inclusionand exclusion in society. Father Divine was keenly aware of these issues as heworked to transform an architecture of exclusion into one of inclusion creating“a landscape of consumer citizenship” for his often poor, marginalised, andracially discriminated against followers, which not only complemented butactualised “the landscape of Republican citizenship” (Upton 1998, 13) in theUnited States. Father Divine knew the reality of racial discrimination in Americaas well as the social history of American cities “where social atomization and theprivatization of public space have been the rule” (Upton 1998, 102). “In the faceof … enduring divisions in the American community, some designers haveimagined new communities that might be inclusive but undisturbed by socialdivisions” (Upton 1998, 101) and Father Divine, as social designer, marked thelandscapes of American urban daily life. He made clear points about race andintegration and segregation in the city by re-using buildings for a positivepurpose no matter what the area, distinguishing them with Peace Mission signsproclaiming “Peace” or his role as “Pastor,” consistently turning religious spaceinto public racialised space. Such efforts at transformation still endure inremaining Peace Mission Holy Communion Banquet Halls and are well illus-trated by the “Chapel Dining Room” in Woodmont where sensitivity to dis-crimination is acknowledged spacially in the race-sensitive seating arrangementsof Banquet guests. In this context of a room decorated with wooden panelsimported from one of the chapels of an Avignon pope (an addition to the houseby its second owner, J. Hector McNeal), surrounded by plaster statutes ofCatholic saints, one is carefully seated at the table to form an integrated grid ofcomplexions in fulfilment of the Peace Missions’ ideals, not to keep separate butto join the peoples of the world.

Michael Owen Jones states several reasons for altering space in a classic articleon re-doing homes in Los Angeles (1980, 325–63): the response to changingphysical needs; the reality of a good investment; maintaining a sense of auth-

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ority and control over oneself, one’s personal existence and possessions; achiev-ing intellectual and sensory goals involving control, construction, and learningof material culture and material space; actualisation of self and self-worththrough symbolic statements; and achievement of social and community goals.All of these reasons are relevant to the Peace Mission’s history and ongoingcontemporary practice of altering and maintaining space beyond the sense ofsurvival to the expression of sacred and social meaning. Father Divine usedmaterial culture and built environments to reconceptualise space in Americancities. He accomplished these tasks before home remodelling or improvement aswell as urban gentrification was even heard of, let alone was fashionable, and hemade these changes with individuals for whom such developments were un-thinkable and unattainable. In the case of palatial, urban Victorian residences, hechose properties that he undoubtedly appreciated as symbols of wealth, power,and fine living. The homes of the employers, therefore, became their AfricanAmerican servants’ domestic spaces, the former servants of the wealthy as-suming the responsibility for the renewal, appreciation, and conversion of theornate interiors to their own special needs. To borrow phrases of Akhil Guptaand James Ferguson concerning space in postmodernity, Father Divine in a priorera and very early in the American struggle for racial justice, “reterritorialised”space forcing his followers and other attentive Americans “to reconceptualisefundamentally the politics of community, solidarity, identity, and cultural differ-ence” (Gupta and Ferguson 1992, 9). Father Divine learned a lesson about powerfrom the dominant Christian Churches in the United States: namely, that areligion needs to mark the city to be an effective change agent; religious realestate equals religious power. Whether sacralising former businesses, residences,or the buildings purchased from other religious groups, the Peace Missioncreated a unique landscape of the sacred in many twentieth-century Americancities even influencing similar efforts in communities abroad (see The New DaySupplement 29 April 1956, S.2, S103). Significantly, the Mission continues to prizeits vernacular architecture of intention to the present time. [13] As Father Divinereconstructed buildings, he created a “new landscape of power” (Zukin 1996, 49)that worked to transform social identities and contest the political and symboliceconomy of America. These buildings helped reinforce the positive lives of men,but especially women members. These “sisters” of the Peace Mission, whileretaining jobs in domestic service or as labourers, empowered themselves inmenial tasks well done and with pride in their work, all achieved through praiseand service to Father Divine and their own community. [14]

Into the twenty-first century, Father Divine’s vernacular architecture continuesto inspire and empower his community of followers, no matter what theirnumbers. Such an intentional use of material culture continues to guide theoccupants of these religious structures to bring perfection to their lives andwitness that goal to those who daily encounter them.

Acknowledgements

This paper was first presented as a part of a panel on “Reappraising NorthAmerican Religious Architecture” at the 2001 meeting of the Society of Architec-tural Historians. I am grateful to Brian C. R. Zugay for the organisation of that

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panel and for his assistance and expertise on American religion and architecture.A version of this paper was also presented at the 2001 meeting of the AmericanFolklore Society in Anchorage, Alaska. Most importantly, this paper was pre-sented to the members of the Peace Mission Movement with Mrs S. A. Divine,better known as Mother Divine, in attendance in June 2001. I have made everyeffort in the production of this article to consult members of the Peace MissionMovement, and engage in a reciprocal ethnographic method, not treating FatherDivine’s followers as informants, but as consultants about their own lives,traditions, and movement. I especially thank Mother Divine for her assistance,as well as several co-workers including Miss Roma Gravure, Mr Philip Life, MissJune Peace, Miss Dorothy Darling, and many other members of the PalaceMission and the Circle Mission Churches. I also wish to thank Deborah AnnBailey, Lourdes Barretto, Katie A. T. Beauchesne, Teilhard Beauchesne, SherryBecht, Rosemarie DeMaio, Shirley Dixon, Brian Gregory, Kathleen MaloneO’Connor, Katie Reing, Ted Salmon, Anne Schwelm, Matthew Serfass, JosephSciorra, Alan Silverman, Robert Morris Skaler, George E. Thomas, Dell Upton,and Nancy Waterson. Charlie McCormick and Michael L. Murray kindly readdrafts of the article.

Notes[1] See Cherry (1998) for a collection of readings tracing the national mythology of America’s

destiny as a providentially chosen land.

[2] Three noteworthy book-length studies of Father Divine and the Peace Mission are Burnham(1979), Weisbrot (1983), and Watts (1992). These texts treat the activities of Father Divineduring his ministry, and Watts speculates on the historical beginnings of the man, GeorgeBaker, who would later be identified as Father Divine. Mother Divine and the followers, ofcourse, disagree with such personal assessments of Father Divine whose nature they under-stand as purely spiritual, and such historical theorising as disrespectful and unnecessary.

[3] These Banquet Services have continued with the remnant of the community into thetwenty-first century.

[4] Griffith (2001), using Watts (1992) as a source, notes the influence of New Thought, mostespecially the Unity School ideas of Charles Fillmore, on Father Divine. Particularly importantfor Griffith is Father Divine’s development of the conviction that the human body was animportant materialised reflection of a developed, spiritualised consciousness. My own workon the Peace Mission’s use of space and the built environment bears out the sacralisation ofthe material, as well as its indication of powerful spiritual advancement and social liberationfor followers. Griffith’s analysis is a valuable reading of the history of the Peace Mission;however, according to my own ethnographic research on the contemporary movement, herperspective does not speak to the way the Mission has developed since 1965. Mother Divine’stheology of the body emphasises health, natural foods, exercise, and the path to Divineconsciousness through eating well.

[5] It is significant to note that the central membership of the Mission were, and remain, female.

[6] This original residence of Father Divine and Penninah, or the first Mother Divine, on 72Macon Street has been preserved by the Peace Mission as a holy site and is referred withinthe movement as “the Home of the Soul.” The present Mother Divine still occasionally holdsHoly Communion Banquet Services there and uses the property as a place for rest andmeditation.

[7] See, for example, Church Discipline, Constitution, and By-Laws of Unity Mission Inc. (n.d.).

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[8] The payment of taxes was allowed because it “is constitutional; in short evangelical” (FatherDivine 11 January 1944, 36).

[9] See, for example, New York Times 4 August 1938, 3; 7 August 1938, 62; 10 August 1938, 3; 2May 1939, 25; 16 June 1939, 2 July 1939, E10; 20 August 1939, E2, 26; 9 July 1945, 18; 18February 1947, 27; 2 December 1948, 33; 19 May 1949, 31; 11 September 1953, 98; 18 November1962, 124; 10 May 1964, 65. This coverage continued even when Father moved the PeaceMission out of New York City and into Philadelphia in 1942. Legal complications involvingother members and their request for a return of donations were the immediate cause of thismove, but Father Divine announced it was because of “the antagonistic and malicious”attitude that the people, public officials, and press of this city has shown toward him” and“because of the disrecognition of those who are in authority of my work and mission” (NewYork Times 20 July 1942, 15).

[10] See Ivey (2002, 108–32) for a useful article on the religious architecture designed for Americancities by Christian Science, another New Thought religious movement.

[11] I would like to return to an analysis of the Mission’s feminine aesthetic of praise in a futurepublication.

[12] Architecture can be comprehensible to sensitive scholars of both humble and grand builtenvironments, but even more significantly it is comprehensible to the designers, builders, andinhabitors of that created space. “Buildings, like poems and rituals,” Henry Glassie begins histextbook on vernacular architecture, “realise culture … Architecture intrudes in the limitlessexpanses of space, dividing it into useful, comprehensible pieces” (2000, 17, 21). See alsoGlassie (2000, 46–7) on the relationship between building designers, builders, and users.

[13] Mother Divine has been recognised by preservation organisations for her commitment tomaintain a number of properties in Philadelphia. In May 2003, for example, she was awardedthe Henry Jonas Magaziner Award by the Historic Preservation Committee of the Philadel-phia chapter of the American Institute of Architects (see Glassman 2003, 10).

[14] See Satter’s (1996) analysis of Father Divine’s understanding of “race neutrality,” and itseffects on his African American and female followers. Satter’s comments on “the latter historyof the Peace Mission” (1996, 66) do not reflect the movement’s ideas on race and gender inthe almost forty years since Father Divine no longer personally led the movement. In thistime, the role of nationalism and the consciousness of racism and sexism are companionthemes in the lived reality of Peace Mission members’ lives and in their understanding of theteachings of Father Divine.

References CitedAlbanese, Catherine L. America: Religions and Religion. 2nd ed. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth

Publishing, 1992.

Burnham, Kenneth E. God Comes To America: Father Divine and the Peace Mission Movement. Boston,Mass.: Lambeth Press, 1979.

Cherry, Conrad, ed. God’s New Israel: Religious Interpretations of American Destiny. Revised andupdated ed. Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1998.

Church Discipline, Constitution, and By-Laws of Unity Mission Inc. New York City, n.p., n.d.

Conover, Elbert M. Building the House of God. New York: The Methodist Book Concern, 1928.

Father, Divine. The Peace Mission Movement as explained by Father Divine. Philadelphia, Pa.: The NewDay Publishing Co., n.d.

Glassie, Henry. Vernacular Architecture. Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 2000.

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Glassman, Susan. Mrs. M. J. “Divine Wins ‘Magaziner’ Award.” The Philadelphia Architect (June2003): 10.

Griffith, R. Marie. “Body Salvation: New Thought, Father Divine, and the Feast of MaterialPleasures.” Religion and American Culture 11 (2001): 119–53.

A Guide to Biltmore Estate. Asheville, N.C.: The Biltmore Company, 2001.

Gupta, Akhil and James Ferguson. “Beyond ‘Culture’: Space, Identity, and the Politics of Differ-ence.” Cultural Anthropology 7 (1992): 6–23.

Handlin, Oscar. “The Magnet of a Cult.” New York Times Book Review (25 October 1953): 14.

Hayden, Dolores. Seven American Utopias: The Architecture of Communitarian Socialism, 1790–1975.Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1976.

Howlett, D. Roger. The Sculpture of Donald DeLue: Gods, Prophets, and Heroes. Boston, Mass.: DavidR. Godine, 1990.

Ivey, Paul E. “Christian Science Architecture in the American City: The Triumph of the ClassicalStyle.” In Faith in the Market: Religion and the Rise of Urban Commercial Culture, ed. John M. Giggieand Diane Winston. 108–32. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2002.

Jones, Michael Owen. “L.A. Add-ons and Re-dos: Renovation in Folk Art and ArchitecturalDesign.” In Perspectives on American Folk Art, ed. Ian M. G. Quimby and Scott T. Swank. 325–63.New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1980.

Mother Divine. The Peace Mission Movement. Philadelphia, Pa.: Imperial Press, 1982.

Mother Divine. “The Peace Mission Movement in Philadelphia.” The New Day Digest 1 (1999): 21–5.First published in Invisible Philadelphia: Community Through Voluntary Organizations, ed. JeanBarth Toll and Mildred S. Gillam. Philadelphia, Pa.: Atwater Kent Museum, 1995.

Kephart, William M. Extraordinary Groups: The Sociology of Unconventional Life-styles. New York: StMartin’s Press, 1987.

Primiano, Leonard Norman. “Mother Divine.” Vol. 2 of Encyclopedia of Women and World Religion,ed. Serinity Young. 678–9. New York: Macmillan, 1998.

Roberts, Warren E. “Folk Architecture.” In Folklore and Folklife: An Introduction, ed. Richard M.Dorson. 281–93. Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, 1972.

Satter, Beryl. “Marcus Garvey, Father Divine and the Gender Politics of Race Difference and RaceNeutrality.” American Quarterly 48, no.1 (1996): 43–76.

Sciorra, Joseph. “Return to the Future: Puerto Rican Vernacular Architecture in New York City.”In Re-Presenting the City: Ethnicity, Capital and Culture in the Twenty-First Century Metropolis, ed.Anthony D. King. 60–92. London: Macmillan, 1996.

Skaler, Robert Morris. West Philadelphia: University City to 52nd Street. Charleston, S.C.: ArcadiaPublishing, 2002.

Skaler, Robert Morris. Philadelphia’s Broad Street: South and North. Charleston, S.C.: ArcadiaPublishing, 2003.

Stewart, Ollie. “It’s Not All Swing In Harlem.” New York Times Magazine (1 October 1939): 7, 20.

Thomas, George E. William L. Price: Arts and Crafts To Modern Design. New York: PrincetonArchitectural Press, 2000.

Upton, Dell. “Architectural History or Landscape History?” Journal of Architectural Education 44, no.4 (1991): 195–9.

Upton, Dell. Architecture in the United States. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Upton, Dell and John Michael Vlach, ed. Common Places: Readings in American Vernacular Architec-ture. Athens, Ga.: University of Georgia Press, 1986.

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Watts, Jill. God, Harlem U.S.A.: The Father Divine Story. Berkeley, Calif.: University of CaliforniaPress, 1992.

Weisbrot, Robert. Father Divine and the Struggle for Racial Equality. Urbana, Ill.: University of IllinoisPress, 1983.

Zukin, S. “Space and Symbols in a Age of Decline.” In Re-Presenting the City: Ethnicity, Capital andCulture in the Twenty-First Century Metropolis, ed. Anthony D. King. 43–59. London: Macmillan,1996.

Biographical NoteLeonard Norman Primiano is Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Cabrini College,Radnor, Pennsylvania, USA. In addition to researching and writing about the Peace Mission Movement,he is also completing a documentary film to be titled: “I Know You Are God: The Marriage of Father andMother Divine.”

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