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 Mc Groarty, SND, founder of Trinity College in Washington, D.C., one of the first Catholic women’s colleges; Philadelphia educator Sister Assisium Mc Evoy, 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.
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Kathleen Sprows Cummings is assistant professor of American studies and associate director of the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism at the University of Notre Dame.