Recovering Their Stories
US Catholic Women in the Twentieth Century
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Celebrating the diverse contributions of Catholic lay women in 20th century America
Recovering Their Stories focuses on the many contributions made by Catholic lay women in the 20th century in their faith communities across different regions of the United States. Each essay explores the lives and contributions of Catholic lay women across diverse racial, ethnic, and socio-economic backgrounds, addressing themes related to these women’s creative agency in their spirituality and devotional practices, their commitment to racial and economic justice, and their leadership and authority in sacred and public spaces
Taken together, this volume brings together scholars working in what otherwise may be discreet areas of academic study to look for patterns, areas of convergence and areas of divergence, in order to present in one place the depth and breadth of Catholic lay women’s experience and contributions to church, culture, and society in the United States. Telling these stories together provides a valuable resource for scholars in a number of disciplines, including American Catholic Studies, American Studies, Women and Gender Studies, Feminist Studies, and US History. Additionally, scholars in the areas of Latinx studies, Black Studies, Liturgical Studies, and application of Catholic social teaching will find the book to be a valuable resource with respect to articles on specific topics.
Laywomen—with the exception of Dorothy Day—are usually invisible in studies focusing on U.S. Catholicism. This excellent collection of essays takes a very necessary step in rectifying this situation by demonstrating the extraordinary variety of ways in which laywomen, even when ignored and mistreated, have contributed to their church. Readers of this volume will come away with a clear sense of how Catholic laywomen have both practiced their faith and played an essential role in the life and work of the church.---Margaret M. McGuinness, Professor Emerita, La Salle University, and author of Katharine Drexel and the Sisters Who Shared Her Vision and Called to Serve: A History of Nuns in America
In centering the experiences of Catholic laywomen, this volume does more than simply recover their stories. The artists and activists, social workers and socialites who appear in these essays navigated competing power structures, and, in the process, developed unconventional insights into the challenges of their times. These essays capture the wry humor and idiosyncratic strategies these women employed as they worked to better their communities, Church, and nation.---Jeanne Petit, Hope College
Sandra Yocum and Nicholas Rademacher have given us the book we need at this moment. Keeping the focus on Catholic laywomen’s leadership, faith, and creative energy, this collection showcases a diversity of experiences and highlights what is possible if we keep looking for laywomen’s stories. Offering new, inter-disciplinary approaches, these scholars remind us once again of the centrality of laywomen in American Catholic history.---Mary J. Henold, Professor, Roanoke College, author of The Laywoman Project: Remaking Catholic Womanhood in the Vatican II Era
Nicholas K. Rademacher is professor in the Religious Studies Department at the University of Dayton. He is co-editor of the journal American Catholic Studies and author of Paul Hanly Furfey: Priest, Scientist, Social Reformer (Fordham, 2017).
Sandra Yocum (Edited By)
Sandra Yocum is University Professor of Faith and Culture at the University of Dayton. Her publications have addressed a wide range of topics in nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first century US Catholicism, including papal authority, clergy sexual abuse, intellectual life, theological education, historiography, and spirituality.
Introduction
Nicholas K. Rademacher and Sandra Yocum | 1
“Pray for good sounds”: Black Catholic Practice, Friendship,
and Irreverence in the Intimate Correspondence of Mary Lou Williams
Vaughn A. Booker | 9
Nina Polcyn: Living Art and Women’s Leadership at St. Benet’s Bookstore
Brian J. Clites | 37
Lucy Looks Twice: The Agency of Lay Lakota Catholic Women, and the Legacy of Nicholas Black Elk
Damian Costello | 61
Dolores Huerta Haciendo Más Caras: Navigating a Catholic World Not Scripted for Her
Neomi De Anda | 71
Catholic Laywomen’s Natural Family Planning across Three Generations
Katherine Dugan | 98
Our Lady of the Liturgical Movement?
Rejecting and Reclaiming Marian Devotion by American Catholic Laywomen
Katharine E. Harmon | 116
The Catholic Novel: Book Reviews in Katherine Burton’s
‘Woman to Woman’ Columns, 1933–1942
Annie Huey | 139
“We Are Not Here to Convict but to Convince”:
A Catholic Laywoman’s Witness to Anti-Racism in Twentieth-Century Philadelphia
Maureen H. O’Connell | 160
Laywomen as Church Patrons: Clare Boothe Luce,
Marguerite Brunswig Staude, and Dominique de Menil
Catherine R. Osborne | 186
The Road to Friendship House: Ellen Tarry and Ann Harrigan
Discern an Interracial Vocation in the US Catholic Landscape
Nicholas K. Rademacher | 206
From Grailville to the Universe:
How the Grail Movement Widened the Possibilities for American Catholic Laywomen
Marian Ronan | 229
Laywomen Enacting the Mystical Body
Sandra Yocum | 250
Acknowledgments | 271
List of Contributors | 273
Index | 275
