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The University of North Carolina Press
296 pp., 6.125 x 9.25, 18 illus., notes, bibl., index
Gender and American Catholicism in the Progressive Era
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. By examining female power within Catholic religious communities and organizations, she challenges the widespread assumption that women who were faithful members of a patriarchal church were incapable of pathbreaking work on behalf of women.
Cummings emphasizes, though, that her subjects understood themselves to be far more marginalized as Catholics than they were as women. Whatever opportunities arose for American women in the early twentieth century, these Catholics pursued them not as "New Women" but as daughters of the "Old Faith." Cummings's analysis makes a strong argument for the need to devote more attention to religious identity as a factor in interpreting women's lives.
"A timely, enlightening book--required reading for those who wish to understand the religious landscape of the Progressive Era and the historical background of today's culture wars. Highly recommended."
--Choice
"Fascinating. . . . Will assuredly appeal to anyone interested in the story of American Catholicism and the growth of the American immigrant church. . . . A fresh perspective on the struggles [of] Catholic women."
--America
"New Women of the Old Faith is a pleasure to read. Cummings brings a genuinely authoritative voice to her narrative, which unfolds with ease and grace. Her analysis of the intra-Catholic debate over gender and identity that characterized the pivotal decades around the turn of the twentieth century is an important contribution to both American Catholic history and American women's history."
--Leslie Woodcock Tentler, The Catholic University of America
"With brilliant insight, Kathleen Sprows Cummings transforms our understanding of Catholic women's history in the United States. Before 1960, she argues, Catholic women had more opportunities for leadership and education inside the church than outside of it. This is a landmark book that will change the way historians write about women in the Catholic Church."
--Catherine A. Brekus, editor of The Religious History of American Women: Reimagining the Past
Cloth: $45.00
© 2009 The University of North Carolina Press
116 South Boundary Street, Chapel Hill, NC 27514-3808
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