Special Collections

: The Ancient Order of Hibernians Collection; The Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH) was founded in 1836 in order to provide assistance of various forms to Irish immigrants in the United States. It exists today as a fraternal organization for Catholics of Irish birth or descent. These limited records include membership flyers, event programs, issues of the National Hibernian Digest, The Irish People, and The Irish Echo, digital photographs, as well as completed membership applications, notebooks, and account ledgers for the Ladies' Auxiliary to the Ancient Order of Hibernians of Warren County, Phillipsburg, New Jersey.

: National Council of Catholic Men; The NCCM was established in 1920 as part of the Lay Organizations Department of the National Catholic Welfare Council (NCWC). Its various functions included the federation of Catholic men's groups, to be a central clearinghouse for information on lay activities, to promote lay cooperation, to help existing Catholic lay organizations on the local level, to contribute to national and international movements with moral questions, and to inculcate appreciation of Catholic principles in society. It operated through a committee system on national, diocesan, and parish levels and published a monthly news organ and other publications as well. It operated a film distribution office and a New York radio and television office, from which it produced The Catholic Hour, 1930-1968. It was briefly merged with NCCW to form the National Council of Catholic Laity, before going defunct in 1975. Records include constitutions, bylaws, and incorporation; minutes of the Board of Directors; reports and convention proceedings; general correspondence including national organizations and diocesan; Catholic Hour radio and television scripts, transcripts, audio tapes, photographs, and phonographs; and miscellaneous publications.

: Student Army Training Corps (SATC) at Catholic University Collections; The Student Army Training Corps (SATC) was the World War I incarnation of the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC), whose college campus training programs included The Catholic University of America (CUA). Records include correspondence, memoranda, announcements, pamphlets, surveys, syllabi, a certificate of appreciation from the War Department to CUA, and a mix of 4 x 6 and 8.5 x 9.5 inch index cards related to student courses and grades.

: Thomas J. Bouquillon Papers; Rev. Thomas Bouquillon was born at Warenton, Belgium on May 16, 1842. He studied philosophy and theology at Roulers and Bruges. In 1865 he was ordained in Rome. Two years later, Bouquillon received his doctorate in theology from the Gregorian University. In that same year he was appointed Professor of Moral Theology in the Seminary of Bruges. Bouquillon was appointed to the Catholic University of Lille, France in 1877 and remained there for the next decade. He came to The Catholic University of America as one of the original faculty members. From 1889 until 1902, the year of his death, he served as Professor of Moral Theology. The collection contains biographical information, general correspondence, miscellaneous lectures and notes, newspaper clippings, and miscellaneous publications.

: Irish Repeal Campaign Cartoons; Illustrating opposing attitudes to the 1801 Act of Union which created a legislative union between England and Ireland. Three anti- union cartoons published in Dublin flatteringly portray Daniel O'Connell, (Irish statesman, founder in 1840 of the Repeal Association which sought restoration of the Irish parliament), in his struggle against English rule as personified by Arthur Wellesley, (Duke of Wellington, British Prime Minster, 1828-1830, 1834), and Sir Robert Peel, (Prime Minister, 1834-1835, 1841-1846). Accompanying O'Connell in two cartoons is a figure that may represent Thomas Osborne Davis, (Irish writer, organizer of the Young Ireland movement, founder of the pro-repeal newspaper, The Nation). In contrast, a fourth cartoon, by English caricaturist, George Cruikshank, represents O'Connell as an ax-wielding bully attempting to sever the hands of England and Ireland united in friendship. The final item, a damaged election flier entitled, "Under the British Flag," depicts Liberal policies favorably in comparison to those of the Tories (Conservatives).

: International Federation of Catholic Alumnae (IFCA) Committee on Motion Pictures and Broadcasting; Founded in 1914, the International Federation of Catholic Alumnae (IFCA) promoted the educational activities of Catholic women, especially teachers. IFCA hoped to be an example of integrity, culture, and charity to help rid the country of bigotry. Among their activities was a Motion Picture and Broadcasting Committee. The collection below is the fifth series of the IFCA records, focused on the Motion Picture and Broadcasting Committee's work reviewing movies to judge which were suitable for Catholics. These files include correspondence and monthly reports from the Committee. Most of the films are from the late silent and early talkie era. The reports are also very extensive and give long descriptions of the films and correspondence with the motion picture studios.

: Anti-Catholic Literature Collection; The collections consists of largely undated original and photostatic copies of material circulated at the time of the 1928 U.S. presidential campaign and includes both campaign-related items and general examples of the literature. The material in this collection presents anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant rhetoric directed at the campaign of Al Smith, the 1928 Democratic candidate for U.S. President and first Catholic to be a major party presidential nominee. As historical objects, these documents reflect the customs and perspectives of their times. The images and language in these documents may be seen as offensive to contemporary viewers. We have chosen to leave all of the digitized images intact as part of the historical record, though as with other records and objects in our archive, we do not endorse the views as depicted in the archival materials we make available to the public.

: Eileen Egan's Mother Teresa Collection; This is a collection of Mother Teresa material compiled over the years by Eileen Egan of New York City, author of the Christopher Award winning biography, Such a Vision of the Street: Mother Teresa, The Spirit and the Work (1985). Ms. Egan served for many years in the Indian Affairs division of Catholic Relief Services (CRS). She also assisted the National Council of Catholic Women (NCCW) in its overseas efforts and edited the international newsletter of the Co-Workers of Mother Teresa. Eileen Egan's Mother Teresa Collection features a wide variety of documents and memorabilia useful to persons studying her cause and career. Included are correspondence to and from Mother Teresa, audio cassettes of her lectures, press releases and newspaper clippings, photographs, and numerous books. A close friend and colleague of the saint, Egan preserved hundreds of handwritten letters and documents sent to her by Mother Teresa, spanning the 1950s through 1990s.

: Co-Workers of Mother Teresa of America Records; Inspired by Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity, the Co-Workers of Mother Teresa in Amerca were inaugurated in New York City in 1971 as an affiliate to the Missionaries. Membership was ecumenical and efforts focused on administering to the poor in areas where the Missionaries of Charity were not present. Prayer, visitation, and a helpful hand were the emphasis and a series of regional and national links were established and maintained with other contemplative orders. The American Co-Workers records are those of Vi Collins while serving as Regional Link, a National Link, and International Speaker/Councillor of the Co-Workers to the Missionaries of Charity. Later additions to the collection include materials donated by Victoria Schmidt and Diane Hattery, fellow Co-Workers. The collection consists of correspondence, financial ledgers, meetings materials, the Co-Worker Newsletter, newspaper clippings, photographs, and audio tapes and film reels accumulated during their forty year association with Mother Teresa and the Missionaries of Charity. Presented here are an assembled collection of materials handwritten or signed by Mother Teresa.

: Msgr. Paul Hanly Furfey Papers; Monsignor Furfey (1896-1992) was a provocative Catholic sociologist from Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was educated at Boston College, St. Mary's University, and The Catholic University of America (CUA), where he obtained a doctorate. Ordained in 1922, he taught at Trinity College (DC), the National Catholic School of Social Service (NCSSS), and CUA where he headed the Sociology Department, 1934-1963. He served as Co-Director of CUA's Bureau of Social Research (BSR) and the Center for Child Development; Associate Director of D.C. Catholic Charities and the Juvenile Delinquency Evaluation Project in New York City; president of the American Catholic Sociological Society, and was a co-founder of Fides and Il Poverello settlement houses. His voluminous papers contain correspondence, reference and research material, student notes and papers, photographs and other memorabilia, financial records, and printed material reflecting decades of education, religion, and social activism from a Catholic intellectual and spiritual perspective. Provided here are scanned documentation and correspondence pertaining to Dorothy Day, Catholic Worker, Catherine de Hueck Doherty, and the Madonna Houses.

: Cecilia Parker Woodson Collection; The Cecilia Parker Woodson Collection contains correspondence, photographs and memorabilia related to the Parker-Woodson family. The bulk of the correspondence is from Walter Woodson to Cecilia Parker during their courtship and early marriage; and to Cecilia Woodson from Charlotte Virginia Woodson while the latter lived in Peru with family friends Mary and William Montavon until her death in 1918.

: John Brophy Papers

: Joseph F. Byron Humanae Vitae Controversy Collection; Born in Albany, NY, in 1924, Joseph Byron attended parochial schools and Siena College for two years. After serving as an infantryman in World War II, he attended the seminary of Theological College in Washington in 1946 and was ordained in 1953 as a priest of the Archdiocese of Washington, serving in the Washington area through the 1960s. Following the promulgation of Paul VI's encyclical Humanae Vitae, on July 26, 1968, Byron was among 40 signers of the Statement of Conscience, which expressed concern over issues surrounding artificial birth control. As a result of the Statement of Conscience, Byron and the other signers were suspended from priestly ministry to varying degrees by Cardinal O'Boyle. Byron was one of 19 priests who disputed their suspension and he undertook to have their case brought before the Church judicially. Paul VI gave the Congregation for the Clergy the task of hearing the case and rendering a decision. After drawing together information from interviews with the priests and meeting with proxies (including Byron) and representatives of O'Boyle, the Congregation reached a decision based on their findings. It was determined that O'Boyle had followed the requirements of the Code of Canon Law, and the priests' representatives were able to clarify their position on the authority of the magisterium, conscience, and pastoral practice in a statement that was acceptable by them and the Congregation. Eventually the priests who still sought to resume their duties, by endorsing the findings, were able to do so. In 1972 Byron was made the founding pastor of St. Rose of Lima Parish in Gaithersburg, MD. In 1976 he was asked to write an article about the case of the Washington 19 and it was published in the theology journal Consilium in 1977. He was appointed pastor of Our Lady of Mercy Parish in Potomac, MD, in 1988, retired in 1992, and died in 1997. This digitized collection consists of correspondence, meeting notes, reports, press releases, newspaper clippings, transcripts of interviews, and a publication file.

: Brooks - Queen Family Collection; The Brooks-Queen Family Papers document the activities of members of two Washington families of the nineteenth century. The Brooks and Queen families united in 1828, when Jehiel Brooks and Margaret Queen, the daughter of Nicholas Louis Queen, married. The papers of Jehiel Brooks and Nicholas Queen constitute the bulk of the collection. Brooks came to the District to secure political appointment, but with the exception of an appointment in the Red River Indian Agency in Louisiana during the administration of Andrew Jackson (1829-1837), he had little luck. Instead, he assumed the role of the gentleman farmer on a tract of land adjacent to property that later became part of The Catholic University of America. One of the largest holders of real estate in the District, Nicholas Queen ran the Queen's Hotel near the Capitol until his death in 1850. The collection also includes the papers of Brooks' and Queen's descendants, including John Henry Brooks, who sold his parents' real estate to early twentieth century developers of the Brookland neighborhood. These digitized papers offer a view into the agrarian past of the District of Columbia, the lives of nineteenth century property holders, political patronage during the mid-nineteenth century, and the work of federal agents among Native Americans as well as slavery and the Civil War.

: CUA Yearbooks; Catholic University's undergraduate yearbook, known as The Cardinal Yearbook, was first published in 1916. It has been published ever since though it was on hiatus for a few years, 1918-1919 and 1944-1947, due to the world wars. It has also changed size and shape a few times though it has on average been about nine by eleven inches and two hundred fifty pages. As historical objects, yearbooks can reflect the customs and perspectives of their times. Some of the images and language in these yearbooks may be seen as offensive to contemporary viewers. We have chosen to leave all of the digitized images intact as part of the historical record, though as with other records and objects in our archive, we do not necessarily endorse the views as depicted in the archival materials we make available to the public.

: Photographs of theCatholic Educational Exhibit, World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago,1893; In May 1890, a group of Catholic educators met with members of clergy and religious orders and decided that a Catholic Educational Exhibit at the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago would be an appropriate way to showcase advances in Catholic education as an important aspect of American Christianity. The result was the Catholic Educational Exhibit at the World's Fair in Chicago. This digital collection consists of photographs of fifty 8"x10" images documenting the building, hall, and alcoves where the Catholic educational institutions displayed their objects and printed material. The educational exhibits occupied 115 alcoves, though the photographs document just under than half of these., This series of 50 images shows booths created by numerous Catholic Diocese in the United States that highlight their contributions toCatholic Education. These booths were part of the Catholic Education Educational Exhibit at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition (World's Fair) in Chicago.

: Catholic Heroes of the World War Collection; Digitized here are the contents of a scrapbook detailing the weekly newspaper column, “Catholic Heroes of the World War,” 1928-1933, written by Daniel J. Ryan. The scrapbook highlights Catholics who had won medals for service in World War I. Ryan began in December 1928 to write and supply to the feature service of the National Catholic News Service a weekly column profiling men, and some women, who had won the Congressional Medal of Honor (CMH), the Distinguished Service Cross (DSC), and/or the Distinguished Service Medal (DSM). There are about 250 stories in all, covering persons from all 48 states and the majority of American Catholic dioceses

: Fenian Brotherhood Collection; Established in Ireland in 1858 as the Irish Republican Brotherhood, their American branch was known by 1859 as the 'Fenians,' with the avowed purpose of overthrowing British rule in Ireland and establishing an Irish Republic. The Fenians in the United States grew to include over 50,000 members and hundreds of thousands of sympathizers by the end of the Civil War, but, rocked by internal factionalism and opposed by the formidable military power of the British Empire, they never came close to achieving their aims. The American wing mounted two short-lived invasions of Canada in 1866 and 1870 and the Irish Fenians launched a small rebellion in Ireland in 1867. The American Fenians faded out of prominence after the last unsuccessful assault on Canada. Many Irish and Irish American nationalists, first recruited to the cause as Fenians, continued to fight for Ireland's independence after the order's decline. The digital collection consists of letters to and from John O'Mahony, James Stephens, John Mitchel, O'Donovan Rossa, and other Fenian leaders; ledgers of accounts; rosters of Fenian soldiers in New York; speeches; pamphlets; newspapers; chromolithographs; cartes de visit photographs; tickets; and legal records. Letters between O'Mahony and Stephens and between Mitchel and O'Mahony touch upon major conflicts and points of debate within the Fenians in the 1860s. Roster books, ledgers, subscription lists to the United Irishmen and Proceedings of Fenian Conventions document the membership and the general activities of the movement. The bulk of the collection is concentrated in the 1860s through 1880s, but it also includes assorted newspapers and pamphlets from the 1850s to the early 1900s that address a wide range of topics in Irish history and nationalism., The full manuscript collection at the American Catholic History Research Center and University Archives (ACUA) consists of letters to and from John O'Mahony, James Stephens, John Mitchel, O'Donovan Rossa, and other Fenian leaders. It also includes speeches, pamphlets, newspapers, chromolithographs, cartes de visit photographs, tickets, and legal records. Membership and the general activities of the movement are documented in roster books, ledgers, subscription lists to the United Irishmen, as well as Proceedings of Fenian Conventions. The bulk of the collection is concentrated in the 1860s through 1880s, but it also includes assorted newspapers and pamphlets from the 1850s to the early 1900s that address a wide range of topics in Irish history and nationalism.

: Iturbide-Kearney Family Papers; Throughout his life, Agustin de Iturbide III (1863-1925) regarded himself the rightful heir of the Mexican empire, first established by Agustin de Iturbide I in the 1820s. Born in Mexico City, the son of a longtime Washington resident and a Mexican diplomat, he became ensnared in the political machinations of Mexico. In 1865, Emperor Maximilian and his wife Carlotta claimed guardianship over two-year-old Agustin Iturbide III to provide an heir to the throne. Two years later, Maximilian's regime fell. Subsequently, Maximilian, Carlotta, and Agustin Iturbide III lived as exiles in Cuba. Shortly afterwards, Agustin Iturbide III was re-united with his birth parents and lived in Washington until, at the age of twelve, he began his education in Brussels. Illness interrupted his stay in Europe, and he finished his education at Georgetown University. In 1887, he moved back to Mexico and enrolled in a military academy. Retaining his dreams of becoming emperor, Agustin Iturbide III engaged in a dispute with President Porfirio Diaz, was court-martialed in 1890, and subsequently exiled. He returned to Washington, became a professor at Georgetown University, and married Mary Louise Kearney, a descendant of James Kearney who emigrated from Ireland during the French Revolution and settled in Fairfax County. The bulk of the digital collection consists of papers and memorabilia from both the Iturbide and Kearney families, including correspondence, Mexican governmental documents, military medals and coins, newspapers, magazines, and portraits.

: Changing Spirituality of Emerging Adults Project Collection; The Changing Spirituality of Emerging Adults (Changing SEA) Project Collection was the final project initiated by Catholic University of America sociologist Dr. Dean R. Hoge (1937-2008). It was conceived as a project to study the "spiritual hunger" of young adult Americans, with the purpose of providing information to religious leaders on how to better minister to the needs of this age group. The project consisted of a series of 15 essays written by scholars on different aspects in the lives of emerging adults, including finances, spirituality, and politics; case studies conducted at various religious institutions that have successfully maintained and added to their emerging adult membership; and surveys of emerging adults on social influences that have molded their attitudes and practice. This collection consists of the fifteen original essays, written circa 2008; four commentaries written by religious and secular authors on the essays and their possible effects on the programs with which they are involved; and nine case studies of religious institutions that have been successful in the area of emerging adult ministry. This early twenty-first century project focuses on emerging adults and offers researchers information on the spirituality of this age group. The digital collection includes essays, commentaries, and case studies

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