New Women of the Old Faith

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.