New Women of the Old Faith: Gender and American Catholicism in the Progressive Era

by Kathleen Sprows Cummings

Overview

American Catholic women rarely surface as protagonists in histories of the United States. Offering a new perspective, Kathleen Sprows Cummings places Catholic women at the forefront of two defining developments of the Progressive Era: the emergence of the “New Woman” and Catholics' struggle to define their place in American culture. Cummings highlights four women: Chicago-based journalist Margaret Buchanan Sullivan; Sister Julia McGroarty, SND, founder of Trinity College in Washington, D.C., one of the first Catholic women’s colleges; Philadelphia educator Sister Assisium McEvoy, SSJ; and Katherine Eleanor Conway, a Boston editor, public figure, and antisuffragist. Cummings uses each woman’s story to explore how debates over Catholic identity were intertwined with the renegotiation of American gender roles.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807889848
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	02/15/2009
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	296
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Kathleen Sprows Cummings is assistant professor of American studies and associate director of the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism at the University of Notre Dame.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction 1

1 Chiefly among Women: The Old Faith, the New Woman, and the Creation of a Usable Past 17

2 Enlarging Our Lives: Higher Education, Americanism, and Trinity College for Catholic Women 59

3 The Wageless Work of Paradise: Catholic Sisters, Professionalization, and the School Question 101

4 The Morbid Consciousness of Womanhood: Catholicism, Antisuffrage, and the Limits of Sisterhood 157

Notes 197

Bibliography 239

Index 263

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

New Women of the Old Faith is a pleasure to read. Cummings brings a genuinely authoritative voice to her narrative, which unfolds with ease and grace. Her analysis of the intra-Catholic debate over gender and identity that characterized the pivotal decades around the turn of the twentieth century is an important contribution to both American Catholic history and American women's history.—Leslie Woodcock Tentler, The Catholic University of America

With brilliant insight, Kathleen Sprows Cummings transforms our understanding of Catholic women's history in the United States. Before 1960, she argues, Catholic women had more opportunities for leadership and education inside the church than outside of it. This is a landmark book that will change the way historians write about women in the Catholic Church.—Catherine A. Brekus, editor of The Religious History of American Women: Reimagining the Past

Editorial Reviews

“A timely, enlightening book — required reading for those who wish to understand the religious landscape of the Progressive Era and the historical background of today’s culture wars. Highly recommended.” — CHOICE

“Fascinating. . . . Will assuredly appeal to anyone interested in the story of American Catholicism and the growth of the American immigrant church. . . . A fresh perspective on the struggles [of] Catholic women.” — America

“This well-written and finely nuanced book makes an important contribution to scholarship in Catholic history and American women’s history.” — The Catholic Historical Review

“Elegantly written. . . . This volume takes us to places we have never been before.” — American Catholic Studies

“An enjoyable read. . . . Cummings has exhausted scores of manuscript collections, newspapers, and secondary sources to construct a lively narrative that enhances our understanding of American women during the Progressive Era.” — Journal of American History

“Clear prose and sophisticated analysis. . . . Cummings' careful analysis encourages historians of women to consider the limits of the Second-Wave narrative.” — Reviews in American History

“Makes a major contribution to women’s history by taking seriously religion as a category of analysis for understanding Progressive Era reform impulses. . . . More than a study of Catholic reformers, this book helps us understand why many religious women rejected feminism and yet acted as feminists.” — Church History

“An important contribution. . . . With subtlety, insight, and detailed research, Cummings elucidates religion and gender in the Progressive Era by considering American Catholic women as important historical agents.” — Journal of Religion

“Exquisitely written. . . .A ground-breaking contribution to gender studies. . . . Will capture the interest of both armchair and professional historians.” — Annals of Iowa

“An important contribution. . . . Cummings’s strategy of explicating the dual identity of American Catholic women through the lives of four 'exceptional' women works exceedingly well. She expertly weaves between biography and social history, expanding her analysis outward onto broad issues. . . . With subtlety, insight, and detailed research, Cummings elucidates religion and gender in the Progressive Era by considering American Catholic women as important historical agents.” — Journal of Religion

From the Publisher