Spirited Lives: How Nuns Shaped Catholic Culture and American Life, 1836-1920 [Hardcover]

Book Description

Publication Date: April 14, 1999

Made doubly marginal by their gender and by their religion, American nuns have rarely been granted serious scholarly attention. Instead, their lives and achievements have been obscured by myths or distorted by stereotypes. Placing nuns into the mainstream of American religious and women's history for the first time, Spirited Lives reveals their critical impact on the development of Catholic culture and, ultimately, the building of American society.

Focusing on the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, one of the largest and most diverse American sisterhoods, Carol Coburn and Martha Smith explore how nuns directly influenced the lives of millions of Americans, both Catholic and non-Catholic, through their work in schools, hospitals, orphanages, and other social service institutions. Far from functioning as passive handmaidens for Catholic clergy and parishes, nuns created, financed, and administered these institutions, struggling with, and at times resisting, male secular and clerical authority.

A rich and multifaceted narrative, Spirited Lives illuminates the intersection of gender, religion, and power in nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century America.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Writing the early story of the Catholic Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondolet, a community of French origin, history professors Coburn and Smith (Avila Coll.) offer a broad context for the influence of nuns on American life. In 1836, six French sisters founded a school for deaf children in St. Louis. The community gradually developed schools, hospitals, and other social institutions throughout the United States. As local congregations dealt with patriarchy, frontier rigors, bigotry, governance issues, and clerical clashes, the Sisters of St. Joseph established a remarkable record of achievement in education and healthcare, serving through epidemics and wars under extreme circumstances, largely financing themselves, and selflessly influencing millions. This readable scholarly work, heavily documented with a careful interweaving of primary and secondary sources, is written from a feminist perspective. The authors have made an important contribution to a neglected corner of American religious history. Highly recommended for history and religion collections.AAnna M. Donnelly, St. John's Univ. Lib., Jamaica, NY
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

An important book for readers interested in a more broadly inclusive story of women's experience in America.

American Historical Review

An invaluable resource for anyone seeking to understand the history of women's religious communities in the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century .

Comptes Rendus

Spirited Lives makes an important contribution to the history of women religious through its use of current scholarship and methodology.

Catholic Historical Review

[Brings] into sharp focus something that needs regular emphasis: the historical role of women in the church.

Commonweal

A great historical perspective on religious life and puts today•s discussion of vocations and religious life in a new light.

Catholic News Service

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 344 pages
• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press (April 14, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807824739
• ISBN-13: 978-0807824733
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,627,253 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars good solid history, August 6, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Spirited Lives: How Nuns Shaped Catholic Culture and American Life, 1836-1920 (Hardcover)

Carol Coburn and Martha Smith have produced an excellent case study of the far ranging influence exerted by religious sisters in the United States over a period of more than a century.

Through their work in schools, hospitals, child care institutions and special education the Sisters of St Joseph interacted with many people outside the Catholic community. Their work in parish schools was particularly important in creating a cohesive and informed Catholic community. It is certain that the history of the Catholic Church in the United States would have been very different had there not been a source of cost effective labour to support a separate school system. As studies on the health care apostolate of the Church (Stepsis & Liptack and Kaufmann) have shown the sisters' apostolate was a means of breaking down prejudice. Their work in private academies did much the same. As the authors point out the work in parish schools also assisted the passage of social mobility for a largely migrant school population.

Not only do we learn how the sisters influenced the population of the United States during its great period of expansion. To the European reader it is also obvious how much the ethos of the pioneer country - not always appreciated by European religious superiors - affected the sisters themselves. The development of religious life in the United States, particularly for those communities founded there or detatched from European congregations, was quite different from that in Europe. In a large country with ever expanding horizons it is much easier to be innovative.

Personally I would have liked a little more comparison between the experience of the Sisters of St Joseph and others communities. On the whole, however, the book was extremely readable and well documented. I cannot claim sufficient acquaintance with feminist theory to say whether this is feminist history. What I do know is that it is good history because it is based on an informed use of rich primary sources and it does not vouch opinion or analysis without sound reasons.

The enormous work of a more general approach is awaited eagerly. If only communities and researchers in Britain had the vast resources that can be taken advantage of in the United States to produce a similar study.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Careful and Readable Study of a Neglected Subject, May 25, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Spirited Lives: How Nuns Shaped Catholic Culture and American Life, 1836-1920 (Paperback)

This is a very well done history of a large religious community. The authors were wise to select the Sisters of St. Joseph (CSJ) a case study of Catholic religious in the United States. CSJs are very typical of American Catholic Sisterhoods in that they had a European origin, adapted European customs to an American context, performed marvels through hard work and dedication in schools and hospitals, and were a vital force in the Americanization of immigrants.

Forget any streotypes about passivity. Leaders of many American religious communities had to be adept at church politics. Authority figures--The Bishop, The Priest, The Cardinal, had very fixed ideas about control of property, assigning of nuns to various projects, as well as gratingly petty demands. The CSJs were marvels at outfoxing some of these demanding reverend gentlemen. And, when one considers that The Bishop had the hierarchical authority of the Church as well as Victorian ideas about the submissiveness of women working on his side, the sagicity of these women is admirable.

Occasionaly, the authors compare the lives and work of the CSJs with Protestant women. I found this interesting and useful and wish the book covered the subject more thoroughly.

The authors perhaps overemphasize the freedom of the Sisters, as compared to married women. Get real. 19th century nuns lived in a ludicrously controlled world where drinking water between meals without permission was considered a fault. The fact that Sisters managed to accomplish all that they did despite rules and regulations dating from the Middle Ages is a testimony to their dedication.

I wish I had written this one!

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars THE INTERSECTION OF GENDER AND RELIGION MUST BE REDRAWN., September 14, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Spirited Lives: How Nuns Shaped Catholic Culture and American Life, 1836-1920 (Hardcover)

In sophisticated and multilayered arguments, Spirited Lives describes how the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet emigrated to North America, expanded their work and influence in the West, created an American identity for themselves, and then helped to "Americanize" generations of mostly poor Catholic immigrants in the United States. They did so by developing and staffing a myriad of educational, health and social service institutions. This work called forth generations of sisters who were educated, hard working, and committed to a spiritual life, women who worked within gender boundaries to affect change in the larger society. This book is meticulously researched and written with precision and honesty, providing a wealth of new information on religion in America, the contributions of a particular group of women to American society, and how American culture was shaped by them. The fact that the book was conceptualized, researched and written by two historians makes this a project unusual for the vigor of the questions, experience and approach brought to bear on the topic. Still, the most exciting aspect of this work lies in two other important areas.

For decades, women's historians have based the emergence of American feminism on the influence of Evangelical Protestantism on white, middle-class women. For that matter, the historiography on American social movements generally has been shaped by this interest in the intersection between religion and reform, more recently adding gender to the mix. Such a focus has, I believe, caused scholars to ignore the committed and growing numbers of Catholic women religious who came to America on missions of mercy and stayed to help build America. Using the history of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet as a case study, Carol Coburn and Martha Smith's Spirited Lives has both filled the void and analyzed the process. Catholicism, as well as Protestantism, formed this culture we call American, and women were leaders in both instances. This is an important conclusion overlooked for the most part by American social historians.

More importantly for women's history is the growing realization that the intersection of religion, gender and reform is more complicated than previously thought. Catholicism, as well as Evangelical Protestantism, shaped women's lives and shaped American society. Women's history has argued for decades that religion and family role moved women from the private space of the home to the reform activities of public space. Now, thanks to the work of Carol Coburn and Sister Martha Smith, we see that the power gained by nuns from their role in "sacred space" gave them the authority to work for change in the larger secular and public spaces of society. These women, in fact, because of their vows of chastity were free to pursue education and work unfettered by the demands placed on Evangelical women who drew their authority from their status as wives and mothers.

Finally, this book has real value for a wide variety of college classrooms. It is always difficult to find monographs that will allow students to learn about a range of historical topics; this one is perfect for that. Religion, ethnicity and race, immigration, social services and social policy, gender, identity formation, poverty, education, and medicine are all topics covered in this "truly American narrative." (p. 10)