page_title: Bathtub Madonna
section_title: Locations
hierarchical_section_title: Bathtub Madonna / Locations
caption_attribution_description: English: "Mary on the Half Shell," (grotto of Mary), in w:Somerville, Massachusetts, near w:Davis Square. Note actual clam shells set into concrete base.
context_page_description: A bathtub Madonna is an artificial grotto typically framing a Roman Catholic religious figure.
context_section_description: Bathtub Marys in actual bathtubs are frequently found in the Upper Mississippi River valley, but was invented by Azorean Portuguese of New Bedford, Massachusetts, and Fall River, Massachusetts, but is also found in western Wisconsin, eastern Iowa and Minnesota, and are an important part of the visual folk culture of Roman Catholics in that region. Noteworthy concentrations of bathtub Madonnas can be found in Stearns County, Minnesota, an area heavily settled by German-American Catholics in the mid-19th century, the Holyland in eastern Wisconsin, and rural Bay City, Michigan.
  Bathtub Madonnas are also a common sight in north-central Kentucky and southern Indiana, an area that has historically been predominantly Catholic. A drive down country roads in Nelson, Marion, and Washington counties will provide ample sightings of these small shrines.
  In the Southern United States, bathtub Marys are a regular sight in the Cajun portion of South Louisiana, especially along the Bayou Teche. Breaux Bridge, St. Martinville, Port Barre, Cecilia, Baldwin and other communities along the bayou have examples of this type of shrine.  They are also commonly found in the Baltimore, MD metropolitan area, and this prevalence was lampooned in the John Waters film Pecker.
  Google and magazine database searches reveal instances of bathtub shrines among other Catholic ethnic groups in other locations, e.g., Mexican Americans in Milwaukee, Italian Americans in Michigan, and Hispanic Americans in New Mexico, French Catholics in Quebec, and in the heavily Polish-Italian-Irish Catholic region of northeastern Pennsylvania, particularly around Scranton.
  In the northeastern United States, smaller shrines that do not make use of actual bathtubs are more common. Somerville, Massachusetts, a city which has traditionally had sizable Italian, Irish, Portuguese and (more recently) Brazilian populations, has over 350 Catholic yard shrines in a town of about four square miles, with more than 40 in actual bathtubs.
caption: "Mary on the Half Shell," in Somerville, Massachusetts.
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