Abbreviations Introduction: An Apostolic Revolution 1. Church and Society: The Emergence of New Nuns 2. Education and Training: Tools for Racial Justice 3. Vocation and Negotiation: Congregational Dynamics 4. Sisters in Selma: Working Under Jim Crow 5. Project Cabrini: Becoming Sistahs 6. The Placement Bureau: Matching Nuns with Needs Conclusion: Endings and New Beginnings Notes Bibliography Acknowledgments Index
A beautifully written book on a neglected subject: Catholics nuns in the United States. Koehlinger's study will powerfully assist us in understanding the experience of race and reform among women religious--and its meaning for Catholicism--during the cauldron of the 1960s." -- John T. McGreevy, author of Catholicism and American Freedom An original and engaging study of Catholic sisters' anti-racist work in the 1960s. Koehlinger is superb in describing the forces promoting the racial apostolate and in taking the reader close to the thoughts, emotions, and daily activities of the sisters. -- Susan M. Hartmann, Ohio State University
Amy L. Koehlinger is Assistant Professor in the School of History, Philosophy, and Religion at Oregon State University.
A beautifully written book on a neglected subject: Catholics nuns
in the United States. Koehlinger's study will powerfully assist us
in understanding the experience of race and reform among women
religious--and its meaning for Catholicism--during the cauldron of
the 1960s." -- John T. McGreevy, author of Catholicism and
American Freedom
An original and engaging study of Catholic sisters' anti-racist
work in the 1960s. Koehlinger is superb in describing the forces
promoting the racial apostolate and in taking the reader close to
the thoughts, emotions, and daily activities of the sisters. --
Susan M. Hartmann, Ohio State University
The New Nuns, a beautifully written, scholarly but
accessible work of archival research and oral history, provides an
insightful analysis of the racial apostolate in the early 1960s.
Amy L. Koehlinger, an acute and empathic historian, explores the
unique time "when developments in the Catholic Church, in American
race relations and in the federal government converged to
dramatically change the political, theological and economic
contexts in which Catholic women religious pursued the apostolic
component of religious life"...This is an important book that
clarifies a complex movement and justly honors the women who, at
considerable cost to their own comfort, expanded traditional
understandings of charity and "learned the power of imagination and
hope." -- Rachelle Linner * Catholic Online *
This is a compelling, elegantly written history, carefully
contextualized, and deeply grounded in archival research and
in-depth interviews. -- D. Campbell * Choice *
A beautifully written, scholarly but accessible work of archival
research and oral history, provides an insightful analysis of the
racial apostolate in the early 1960s. -- Rachelle Linner * Catholic
News Service *
This book will be an important asset for both scholars and the
church as they come to terms with the legacy of the period. But
most importantly, Koehlinger's New Nuns is [a]significant
work that tackles the complex world sisters inhabited in the
turbulent decades following World War II without ever losing sight
of the real women under the habits. -- Gregory Hite * American
Catholic Studies *
This book definitely contributes to a better understanding of the
complex changes that came about in the lives of women religious in
the 1960s and 1970s. [Koehlinger's] study takes a novel approach in
bringing issues of race and gender to bear on religious life. [Her]
well-written study will be useful in undergraduate and graduate
classrooms, and should be on the shelves of college, university,
and public libraries. -- Ann M. Harrington * American Catholic
Studies *
In this innovative study, Amy Koehlinger combines the methodologies
of history and anthropology to examine how "in just a few short
years sisters had transformed themselves from virtual inmates of
their own religious institutions into public activists agitating
for the liberation of others"...Koehlinger poignantly chronicles
the frustrations, tensions, and triumphs the new nuns experienced
as they negotiated tortuous paths between their own moral
imperatives toward racial justice and the recalcitrance and
opposition of racist laity, clergy, and even other sisters. --
Diane Batts Morrow * Catholic Historical Review *
![]() |
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
![]() |