Eichenberg at “The Catholic Worker:” A Radical Vocation

When Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day launched The Catholic Worker in 1933 in the depths of the Great Depression, they envisioned a different kind of newspaper: one that would integrate protest with spiritual formation. Their unwavering commitment to addressing the plight of the working class led to a paper that broke new ground in American religious and political life. Printed cheaply and sold for a penny, it circulated in soup kitchens and tenement apartments, in picket lines and on factory floors. Its pages a compelling mixture of essays, reports from the poor, theological reflection, and radical political critique. Guided by Maurin’s European socialist and personalist philosophy and Day’s anarchist and pacifist views, the newspaper disseminated ideas that challenged the status quo in its ongoing critique of mainstream society. From union actions and tenant evictions to state violence and political injustice, it framed the problems of ordinary people using the social teaching of the Catholic Church. Maurin’s “Easy Essays,” Day’s “On Pilgrimage” column, research pieces, and contributions from others on a range of worker issues found concrete expression in the growing Catholic Worker movement and its hospitality houses and other social services.

Into this world of voluntary poverty and prophetic dissent stepped Fritz Eichenberg, whose wood engravings gave The Catholic Worker a visual grammar to express its moral urgency. For around 40 years after his chance meeting with Day in 1949, Eichenberg would illustrate the newspaper with bold, stirring wood engraved prints featuring images that proclaimed Christ’s presence amid human suffering. A German–Jewish immigrant, he converted to Quakerism after fleeing the Third Reich with his family and the unexpected death of his wife. One of the world’s foremost wood engravers, his prolific output spanned a range of subjects that included illustrations of literary classics by figures such as Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Poe. His conversion drew him more deeply into religious themes, and although he didn’t share Maurin and Day’s Catholicism, Eichenberg found in their movement a place to express his own commitment to peace and Christian ethics.

This essay was my contribution to the Forum on Personalism and the Catholic Worker, featured in Genealogies of Modernity.

Fritz Eichenberg

Pieta