"We Owe it to our Sex as Well as our Religion": The Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, the Ladies Auxiliary, and the Founding of Trinity College, 1898-1904
In 1897, the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur announced their plan to open Trinity College for Catholic women in Washington, D.C. Unlike other Catholic women's colleges, Trinity would not evolve from a pre-existing secondary academy. This circumstance made the challenge of fund-raising more formi...
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
American Catholic Historical Society
2004
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| In: |
American catholic studies
Year: 2004, Volume: 115, Issue: 4, Pages: 21-36 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | In 1897, the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur announced their plan to open Trinity College for Catholic women in Washington, D.C. Unlike other Catholic women's colleges, Trinity would not evolve from a pre-existing secondary academy. This circumstance made the challenge of fund-raising more formidable, and the Sisters turned to lay Catholic women to help meet Trinity's financial needs. Trinity's Ladies Auxiliary Board of Regents was organized for this purpose in 1898. Members of the Ladies Board and the Sisters often cited common bonds of womanhood and Catholicism as the inspiration for their collaboration, and for the most part a shared gender and religious identity did enable them to work together to finance and publicize the new college. But while the Ladies and the Sisters were indeed united as women and as Catholics, they were also divided by clearly defined boundaries between lay and vowed women. A consciousness of respective roles and a clear division of labor could facilitate genuine and fruitful cooperation, but disagreements over strategy and authority occasionally produced conflict that brought the boundaries between the two groups into sharp relief. The combined efforts of the Sisters of Notre Dame and the Ladies Auxiliary on behalf of Trinity College thus illustrate both the possibilities and limitations of "sisterhood" among Catholic women at the beginning of the twentieth century. |
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| ISSN: | 2161-8534 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: American catholic studies
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