Date of Award
Summer 6-1933
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Keywords
Sisters of the Holy Family, African American Catholics, Catholic Social Work, New Orleans, Religious Women, Welfare History, Orphanages, Catholic Education, Louisiana History, HBCU Thesis, African American Women Religious, Lafon Old Folks Home
Abstract
This thesis, submitted to the faculty of Xavier University in partial fulfillment of requirements for a Bachelor of Arts degree in Education in 1933, surveys the social welfare, educational, and spiritual activities of the Sisters of the Holy Family, a Catholic religious congregation of African American women founded in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1842. Drawing on institutional records, community documents, and the author's own twenty-five years of experience with the congregation, the study chronicles the development of the Sisters' welfare activities across three areas. Part I examines social activities including the Lafon Old Folks Home, Saint John Berchmans Girls' Orphanage, the Lafon Boys' Home, outdoor relief and case work, ministry to the sick, care of delinquent youth, mission work in British Honduras, and emergency relief during the 1905 Yellow Fever epidemic. Part II documents educational activities including parish schools in Louisiana and Texas, vocational training at Holy Rosary Institute in Lafayette, and the development of state-accredited high schools. Part III describes the annual Young Ladies' Retreat as a spiritual welfare activity. The study concludes that the Sisters' welfare contributions preceded many professional and organized charity movements by decades, and that their work was built on religious charity rather than scientific social work methods. No original abstract was included; this abstract is provided by the XULA Digital Commons editors.
Recommended Citation
Walto, Sister M. Catherine SSF, "The Origin and The Development of The Welfare of The Holy Family" (1933). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 30.
https://digitalcommons.xula.edu/etd/30