Program

Research Programs: Public Scholars

Period of Performance

9/1/2018 - 8/31/2019

Funding Totals

$60,000.00 (approved)
$60,000.00 (awarded)


American Catholicism and the Cantor Fitzgerald Employees Who Lost Their Lives on 9/11

FAIN: FZ-261493-18

Julie Elizabeth Byrne
Hofstra University (Hempstead, NY 11549-1000)

Writing an account of five men killed in the attack on the World Trade Center, focused on their shared cultural and religious background.

On September 11, 2001, financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald lost 658 of its 960 New York employees, the highest number of casualties of any single institution. Its workers were largely young men from the suburbs of Long Island, New Jersey, and Connecticut, and they were mostly Catholic. In this book I put the story of 9/11 in an even larger frame of multigenerational U.S. love and loss, told through the lives of the the Cantor Fitzgerald men and those who mourned them. It is a local story of Catholic families whose suburban addresses came with profound shifts in class, race, gender, political views, and religious practice. It is also a story as national as the U.S. love affair between religion and business and as international as global terrorism. Exploring the lives of “just regular guys” who became national martyrs—and the continued hopes and doubts of family who loved them—promises new insight for all Americans wanting to understand ourselves and our country in this millennium.





Associated Products

Panel presentation on book project (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Panel presentation on book project
Author: Julie Byrne
Abstract: Paper in honor of Professor James T. Fisher describing research on the 9/11 Catholic families book so far.
Date: 01/05/2020
Conference Name: American Catholic Historical Association (in tandem with American Historical Association)

Panel presentation (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Panel presentation
Author: Julie Byrne
Abstract: Informal talk on my experience in the NEH Public Scholars program.
Date: 11/24/2019
Conference Name: American Academy of Religion

RELI 10 What is Religion? Introduction to Religious Studies (Course or Curricular Material)
Title: RELI 10 What is Religion? Introduction to Religious Studies
Author: Julie Byrne
Abstract: Revised syllabus for intro to religious studies class included material on and discussion of 9/11 as informed by my research.
Year: 2019
Audience: Undergraduate

RELI 33 Religion and Business (Course or Curricular Material)
Title: RELI 33 Religion and Business
Author: Julie Byrne
Abstract: New course on Religion and Business that will include material on 9/11, the world of finance, and Catholic families as informed by my research.
Year: 2020
Audience: Undergraduate

TV interview (Film/TV/Video Broadcast or Recording)
Title: TV interview
Writer: Tim Harfmann
Director: Julie Byrne
Producer: Tim Harfmann
Abstract: Interviewed for NET-TV about NEH Public Scholars grant project, September 18, 2018.
Year: 2018
Format: Other