Voices from an Early American Convent: Marie Madeleine Hachard and the New Orleans Ursulines, 1727-1760

In 1727, twelve nuns left France to establish a community of Ursuline nuns in New Orleans, the capital of the French colony of Louisiana. Notable for founding a school that educated all free girls, regardless of social rank, the Ursulines also ran an orphanage, administered the colony's military hospital, and sustained an aggressive program of catechesis among the enslaved population of colonial Louisiana. In Voices from an Early American Convent, Emily Clark extends the boundaries of early...