Good Hearts: Catholic Sisters in Chicago’s Past

Suellen Hoy's Good Hearts describes and analyzes the activities andcontributions of Catholic nuns in Chicago. Beginning with the arrival ofwomen-religious in 1846 and ending with the sisters' social activism inthe 1960s, Good Hearts traces the development and evolution of thesisters' work and ministry that included education, health care, andsocial services. Contrary to conventional portrayals of religious asreclusive and conservative, the nuns in Good Hearts are revealed asdynamic, powerful agents of change. Catholic sisters lived on the edge, serving sick and poor immigrants as well as those racially andreligiously unlike themselves, such as the uneducated black migrantsfrom the South