The Cincinnati Bible War

Stories of segregation, slander and secularization

by Deborah Rieselman

As the Catholic-Protestant animosity in Cincinnati grew increasingly hot, words like "infidel," "exclusionists" and "intolerant" began spewing out of mouths. One September evening in 1869, a "mob spirit," as local newspapers described it, reached the boiling point.

Hundreds of citizens crowded inside Pike's Music Hall on Fourth Street, with hundreds more milling outside unable to get in, to present documents to the Cincinnati Board of Education, including 2,500 signatures of children and a petition signed by 8,700 adults demanding that the Bible be brought back into the classroom. The morning Cincinnati Gazette's less-than-objective headlines declared, "Bibles in the Schools, A Glorious Demonstration, Immense Audience and Intense Enthusiasm, Rousing Speeches and Ringing Resolutions."

	Cincinnati's historic fight over keeping the Bible in the public schools climaxed at Pike's Music Hall in 1869, as recorded in this publication.

More than two years would pass before the Ohio Supreme Court would resolve the conflict, but because the city sat on the leading edge of the nation's western frontier, much of the country sat poised to follow suit. In retrospect, scholars consider the Cincinnati Bible War to be a "watershed event in the secularization of public schools," explains University of Cincinnati associate history professor Linda Przybyszewski. "This was the beginning of the end of the Bible in public schools."

Cincinnati? Leading the nation in banning Bibles? Embroiled in Catholic-Protestant conflicts? Sitting on the edge of the Western frontier? Poised to lead the nation in any thing?

The historic event raises many questions for students taking Przybyszewski's "Law and Religion in U.S. History" class at UC. "At first, they're astonished," she says. "Then they have a great time with it."

Twice the class conducted research on the subject, reading original newspaper accounts on microfilm. "The newspapers were so much more emotional at that time, completely politically partisan," she says. "This was a situation where a whole lot of people were mouthing off."

Ministers took stances from their pulpits. Lawyers made political speeches. And everyone wrote passionate letters to the editor.

In August 1869, the Cincinnati Board of Education had just exiled the Bible from schools because it put Catholic children at a disadvantage. After all, the Roman Catholic and Protestant versions of the Bible differ not only in text, but in the number of books included.

It's not clear what precipitated the decision, but Catholic leaders such as archbishop John Purcell had long complained that public school boards should help finance the Catholic schools to give children an alternative. The request wasn't as outrageous as it sounds today.

"The notion of public and private was far more flexible than what we're used to," Przybyszewski says. "There were public schools that charged tuition and private schools that got public funds."

In areas where nearly everyone was Catholic, such as New Mexico, communities actually split public school funds with the Catholics and hired nuns to teach, she says. Still, Cincinnatians were hesitant to split the pot so readily.

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