The Ohio River Valley was the site of an intense rivalry between Protestants and Catholics in the nineteenth century, as members of each group vied to extend their control through the development of churches, schools, orphanages, and other institutions. This dissertation explores the process and analyzes the effects of Catholic institution building in Cincinnati, Ohio, focusing on the 1850s to 1870s. It places Sarah Worthington King Peter at the center of the story. Peter, a lay leader, brought members of three religious orders for women to the region. Through that work and other efforts, Peter and her allies embedded and extended the influence of Catholic ideas and practices in social and civic life in the area. This project sheds new light on the contributions of elite lay women in the nineteenth-century U.S. Catholic Church, specifically highlighting Peter’s role as a transatlantic intermediary who gathered and directed American and European resources and personnel, expanding Catholicism in the United States. After converting to Catholicism in Rome, Italy, in 1855, Peter returned to southern Ohio determined to cultivate the Catholic works of mercy. She recruited members of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, Sisters of the Poor of St. Francis, and the Sisters of Mercy to found hospitals and relief houses for vulnerable populations in the region. The sisters opened convents and constructed chapels that housed relics and religious art from Europe. In this way, Peter and the sisters fostered devotional Catholicism and claimed new spaces for the Church in the Ohio Valley. A member of a wealthy and politically-active family, Peter donated her own money and property and relied on established social networks at home, while also leveraging her elite status to enter—and fundraise in—exclusive Catholic circles abroad. The institutions Peter and the sisters founded in the late 1850s served the region through the Civil War. The postwar period ushered in new social and political dynamics and brought economic crises that challenged the Catholic sisters, forcing some to suspend institutional growth and others to direct their energy to teaching in Catholic schools. As the nineteenth century ended, leadership in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati became increasingly centralized and bureaucratized, thus marking the end of an era in which Peter and the sisters managed much of the institution building in the region.

Creator

• Creason, Carl C.

DOI

• https://doi.org/10.21985/n2-f2vp-5q19

Subject

• American history
• Religious history

Language

• en

Alternate Identifier

• etdadmin_upload_985337
• http://dissertations.umi.com/northwestern:16554

Keyword

• Philanthropy
• Transatlantic Catholicism
• Women religious
• Urban development
• Catholic institution building
• Lay women

Date created

• 2023-01-01

Resource type

• Dissertation

Rights statement

• In Copyright