Biographies have been written of the liturgical pioneers in the United States, and scholars have studied particular aspects of the movement. This volume is the first to treat the movement synthetically. As a social history, the liturgical movement in the United States is examined not only from the perspective of the people who were behind it but also from its socio-cultural context treating such issues as immigration, ethnic identity, and poverty in the years of the Great Depression. Grounded in the theology of the Mystical Body of Christ, the pioneers' call for full and active liturgical participation necessarily included social responsibility. At the heart of the liturgical movement in the United States in the 1930s and 1940s was one fundamental principle: liturgy and social justice are inseparable. The author calls for a new liturgical movement and for the rediscovery of that inseparable relationship within the contemporary American church.