Catholic sisters and north american history: the state of the field

Abstract

I set out to write a paper about the founding of the first Catholic women’s colleges in the United States in the late 19 centuries. There were fourteen Catholic women’s colleges established in the United States by 1910, and most of them had made gradual transitions from secondary academies into four-year institutions chartered to award baccalaureate degrees. Trinity College in Washington, D.C., was an exception. In 1897, Sister Julia McGroarty of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur announced that they would open a brand-new college in the nation’s capital, one that would not evolve from a pre-existing academy.