Roman Catholic sisters first traveled to the American West as
providers of social services, education, and medical assistance. In
Across God's Frontiers, Anne M. Butler traces the ways in
which sisters challenged and reconfigured contemporary ideas about
women, work, religion, and the West; moreover, she demonstrates how
religious life became a vehicle for increasing women's agency and
power.
Moving to the West introduced significant changes for these women,
including public employment and thoroughly unconventional monastic
lives. As nuns and sisters adjusted to new circumstances and
immersed themselves in rugged environments, Butler argues, the West
shaped them; and through their labors and charities, the sisters in
turn shaped the West. These female religious pioneers built
institutions, brokered relationships between Indigenous peoples and
encroaching settlers, and undertook varied occupations, often
without organized funding or direct support from the church
hierarchy. A comprehensive history of Roman Catholic nuns and
sisters in the American West,
Across God's Frontiers reveals
Catholic sisters as dynamic and creative architects of civic and
religious institutions in western communities.