| This dissertation analyzes the activities of three orders of Catholic women religious in Kentucky---the Sisters of Loretto, the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth, and the Dominican Sisters of St. Magdalen's (later St. Catharine's)---from 1812 to 1860, focusing on the significant contributions they made to the institutional development of Roman Catholicism and the shaping of Protestant-Catholic relations. It examines the women who founded these orders, the work they did, and how they interacted with the broader Catholic Church. Unlike most religious communities at this time, these three orders were fundamentally American: their founding members were born and raised in the United States, primarily in Kentucky. As local women, already well known in their communities, they encountered greater acceptance of and appreciation for their efforts than their foreign-born counterparts elsewhere in the United States.;The sisters described themselves as "consecrated to the service of God and their neighbor" and divided their time between religious devotions and community work, especially education, though also nursing and other forms of social work. They built, administered, and taught in scores of schools across the South and Midwest, educating children of all classes in rural and urban areas. Their schools crossed traditional religious boundaries, welcoming Protestant students from the beginning and continuing that practice even as anti-Catholicism grew increasingly strident in the 1840s and 1850s. Through this work and their other activities, sisters became important representatives of the Catholic Church---visible, positive symbols of Catholicism in Protestant-dominated areas.;The history of these women also forces a rethinking of the traditional understanding of relations between Protestants and Catholics in antebellum America as two separate, distinct entities with little in common and few points of contact apart from anti-Catholic violence. The sisters, rather, bridged those divides, bringing Protestant and Catholic students together in their schools, nursing Protestant and Catholics alike through illnesses and epidemics, and generally demonstrating a complicated picture of religious interaction in the antebellum period. While not immune to nativist attacks, sisters found some of their staunchest supporters among Protestants. |
