Design by Peggy Beaudette
Documents from the Archives of
The Sisters of Charity of Saint Elizabeth
|
An Annotated List of the
Writings
of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton
COMPILED BY
JUDITH METZ, S.C.
AND
REGINA BECHTLE, S.C.
Elizabeth Bayley Seton was the first American-born canonized Saint in the Roman Catholic Church. She was the foundress of the American Sisters of Charity and is credited with starting the parochial school system in the United States. Coming from a Protestant background, converting to Catholicism, and becoming a co-worker with John Carroll in the formative years of the Catholic Church in the new republic, she was one of the most influential Catholic women in the early nineteenth century. Elizabeth Seton's writings offer a rich insight into her life and her times. Her spirituality and deep personal relationships as well as the detail of her life as widow, convert, single mother, educator and religious are revealed in hundreds of letters, personal journals, meditations, and instructions to the sisters, some never before published.
The thirteen religious congregations which comprise the Sisters of Charity Federation have undertaken the publication of the complete corpus of Seton writings. Documents have, to date, been located in fifteen repositories in the United States and Canada. Their publication will provide rich source material for those interested in religious history, women's history, and the history of religious life as well as those with a special interest in Elizabeth Seton herself.
As a step to the publication of the writings, an annotated list of the holdings in each repository will be published in several issues of Vincentian Heritage. This first installment includes listings from all archives of the Sisters of Charity and the Daughters of Charity except Saint Joseph Provincial House in Emmitsburg, Maryland. Next will be holdings from non-Sister/Daughter of Charity repositories. Finally, will be a listing from Saint Joseph's Provincial House, the repository for the largest collection of Seton writings. We hope those interested will find this material helpful, and we invite additions to, or comments on, these lists. Send your comments to: Judith Metz, S.C., 5900 Delhi Rd., Mount Saint Joseph, OH 45051 or Regina Bechtle, S.C., 6301 Riverdale Ave., Bronx, NY 10471.
