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New Women of the Old Faith

Gender and American Catholicism in the Progressive Era

Kathleen Sprows Cummings

Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
Imprint: The University of North Carolina Press
Published: 02/2009
Pages: 296
Subject: Religion, History, Social Science | University of North Carolina
Print ISBN: 9.78E+12
eBook ISBN: 9780807889848

DESCRIPTION

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.