Neighbors and missionaries : a history of the Sisters of Our Lady of Christian Doctrine / Margaret M. McGuinness.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Machine generated contents note: American Women Religious and the Sisters of Christian Doctrine -- The Catholic Church, the Poor, and Catholic Social Settlements -- The Sisters of Our Lady of Christian Doctrine -- Writing the History of the Sisters of Christian Doctrine -- 1. From Wellesley College to the Lower East Side -- Education for Service -- A Church Settlement -- A Catholic Settlement in New York City -- A Training School for Catechists -- A New Community -- 2. Fighting to Save the City of New York -- A Catholic Social Settlement on the Lower East Side -- Madonna House -- Conflict with Clerical Authority -- Forming Faithful Citizens -- Ministering to Veterans -- Not Just Italians -- 3. Neighbors and Teachers -- Growing Pains -- A Motherhouse and a Second Settlement -- Hard Times -- Settlement Work and the Second World War -- The Closing of the Settlement Houses -- 4. Settlements Go South -- A New Foundation -- Staying Connected -- A Southern Settlement.

Contents note continued: Growing Friendships -- Valley Catholics -- Maintaining the Mission -- A Problem of Numbers -- 5. More than Settlement Houses -- Parish Ministry in the South -- Northern Apostolates -- Changes in Ministry -- 6. Changes and Continuities -- Adjusting to the Loss of Mother Marianne -- Moving Forward -- Responding to Transformations -- Challenging Times -- Coming toward the End of a Century.

Neighbors and Missionaries examines a distinctive community of women religious whose primary focus was neither teaching nor nursing/hospital administration. The choice of the Sisters of Our Lady of Christian Doctrine to live among the poor and to serve where other communities were either unwilling or unable to demonstrates that women religious in the United States served in many different capacities as they contributed to the life and work of the American Catholic Church.