Elizabeth Anne Seton

An Episcopalian New York City daughter of a highly regarded physician, Elizabeth Anne Seton (1774-1821) was a mother of five who worked among the poor. She experienced Catholicism in Italy as her husband recovered from illness, but he died from tuberculosis. Elizabeth converted. Shunned by her friends and broke from her husbands bankruptcy, she opened a school for boys. A priest, and the presisdent of St. Mary’s College in Baltimore invited her to provide free education for poor girls.

Seton and her co-workers formed the Sisters of St. Joseph, the first order of nuns formed in the United States, taking their vows before Bishop Carroll in 1809. They initiated United States parochial education. In 1812, the order became The Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph under modified rules of The Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul. Her order emphasizes education, health, and social service. Schools were soon opened in Philadelphia and New York, and there were twenty communities before Seton died. The Sisters of Charity formed Seton Hill Universtity in Greensburg, Pa. In 1856. Seton is the first person born in the United States to be canonized (1975). By 1900, there were forty thousand sisters in the US. The Ursulines were the first female religious order to enter the US in 1927, in New Orleans.