Special Collections

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ACUA Photographic and Audiovisual Collections
This digital collection includes photographic collections from the American Catholic History Research Center and University Archives at the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. Included are images and prints of Catholic University's buildings and grounds, faculty, students, and University community from different periods of its history. So far, this collection contains images from the 1890's and 1917-1921; additional images are continually added to this collection., Approximately 420 selected items from the Archives of Catholic University of America., As historical objects, these photographs can reflect the customs and perspectives of their times. Some of the images in these collections may be offensive to contemporary viewers. We have chosen to leave all of the digitized contents intact as part of the historical record, though as with other records and objects in our archive, we do not endorse the views depicted in the archival materials we make available to the public.
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.
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.
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.
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
Catholic University of America - Historical Documents
The documents contained within this collection represent the early history of the Catholic University of America. These documents come from a variety of University and institutional record groups and are curated here to provide ease of access in one digital location.
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.
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
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.
Commission on American Citizenship of the Catholic University of America
The records of the Commission of American Citizenship of the Catholic University of America spans 1938 to 1970, consists of manuscripts (mostly correspondence) and the publications by the Commission, including guides for social teaching and textbooks for grade schools as well as periodicals for the youths and children. Digitized here are the textbooks produced by the Commission of American Citizenship of the Catholic University of America spanning 1938 to 1970. The collection spans to 1970 but the textbooks to 1960.
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.
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.
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.
First Vatican Council Photograph Album
This digitized album consists of a leather-bound album containing 30 pages of carte de visite albumen prints. The album features prints of Pope Pius IX, and 730 cardinals, patriarchs, primates, archbishops, bishops, and abbots who attended the Vatican Council I from 1869-1870., The First Vatican Council Photograph Album was most likely created sometime during the council sessions, from 1869-1870. Around 800 church leaders attended the sessions, including cardinals, patriarchs, archbishops, bishops, abbots, and religious superior generals. Most of the carte de visite prints are live portraits, though some are based on oil or charcoal prints.
Fulton J. Sheen Collection
Born in El Paso, Illinois, in 1895, Fulton Sheen attended St. Viator College and was ordained in 1919. He taught at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., from 1926 to 1950. In 1930, he began his radio program on "The Catholic Hour" which ran until 1952. He also hosted a weekly television series called "Life is Worth Living" from 1951 to 1957. He served as Bishop of Rochester, New York, from 1966 to 1969 and died in 1979. The digitized Fulton J. Sheen Collection consists of his philosophy notes taken while a student at the University of Louvain, several published booklets, press clippings, and many published and non-published material and personal notes related to his work for the Commission on Missions at the Second Vatican Council.
George G. Higgins
The Higgins Papers document his life and work from the 1940s when he was in school at The Catholic University of America to the early 2000s when he assisted the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) with organization efforts in Catholic hospitals. The bulk of the collection consists of paper records in the correspondence, subject, writing, and labor series. Much of the material overlaps into other series, reflecting Higgins' busy life as a labor supporter, writer, and self-described church bureaucrat. Papers digitized here relate particularly to his correspondence with Catholic intellectual Richard John Neuhaus.
Harry Cyril Read Papers
Harry Cyril Read was born on May 13, 1892, in Chicago, Illinois, to Harry Carleton and Margaret Ann (Griffin) Read. He attended Chicago grade schools and later worked on a business degree at Northwestern University from 1919 to 1921. Prior to his higher education work, he served in the United States Army during World War I as a Sergeant Major of the 346th Tank Battalion. After returning from the war, he married Mary Sue Kain on December 10, 1918. They had three children: Harry Carleton, John Kain, and Mary Sue. After the death of his wife in 1928, he married Lucia Florence Jennings on February 23, 1938. As a newspaperman for nearly three decades, Read worked as both a reporter and an editor. His newspaper career began in 1912 when he worked as a reporter for the Cheyenne Leader in Cheyenne, Wyoming. He did not remain in Wyoming long and, in July 1912, returned to Chicago where he worked for The Pullman Company and The Chicago Bridge and Iron Company before returning to the journalism field in 1916 as a reporter for the Chicago Daily Journal. He continued to work for the Chicago Daily Journal after returning from World War I until 1919 when he accepted a position at the C. E. Thomas Publishing Company. He worked there until 1920 when he formed an advertising service partnership, which lasted until 1921 when Read became a reporter for the Chicago American, one of two Chicago newspapers owned by William Randolph Hearst. The Chicago American first went to press in 1900 as an evening newspaper with the other Hearst newspaper, the Chicago Examiner, beginning publication in 1902 as a morning paper. By the time Read began as a reporter for the Chicago American, Hearst had bought the Chicago Herald in 1918 creating the Herald-Examiner, which, with the Chicago American, became two of the most successful daily newspapers in Chicago with a circulation of about 300,000. After working as a reporter for four years, Read became the editor of the Chicago American in 1926 during some of the most intense crime in Chicago and United States history. Chicago had always had a violent reputation and the statistics to back that claim, but the 1920s proved to be unusually bloody primarily as a result of competition over illegal liquor distribution during the Prohibition Era. Read carried on the tradition of aggressive newsgathering by the Chicago American by forming a relationship with Al Capone, one of the most notorious gangsters in Chicago and the country at the time. Read left the Chicago American in 1932 to publish his own newspaper, the Northwest Sun, but returned as the night editor for the Herald-Examiner in 1934. By the 1930s, the CIO-affiliated American Newspaper Guild had organized Local 71, the Chicago Newspaper Guild, and negotiated generous contracts, which had become difficult for Hearst to honor by the late 1930s as advertising revenues failed to recover from the effects of the Depression and the price of newsprint increased. After layoffs in both of the Hearst Chicago newspapers, the guild called for a strike that began on December 4, 1938. As a significant guild member, Read was included in a suit filed by the Hearst papers to restrain strike activity in February 1939, and his wife was arrested for assaulting a police officer that same year. By the time the strike ended in April 1940, the two Hearst newspapers had been merged into the Chicago Herald-American. Read did not return to his former job, but his experience with the labor movement led to positions in several labor-affiliated newspapers including the United Auto Worker, the Wage Earner (a Catholic-related publication as well), and as editor of the Michigan CIO News. In 1945, Read and his wife moved to Washington, D.C., when he accepted a job as Assistant to the Secretary-Treasurer of the CIO, James B. Carey. In this capacity, Read represented the union at the United Nations Conference for International Organization in San Francisco in 1948 and at the World Federation of Trade Unions in Rome in 1948. While in Rome, Pope Pius XII received him in private audience. Read had been involved with Catholic-related groups as a member of the Association of Catholic Trade Unionists, the Catholic Economic Association, the Catholic Labor Alliance, and the Catholic Inter-racial Council. In addition to his work with Catholic organizations, he also became more active on health and safety committees in Washington, D.C. and was recognized posthumously by the National Safety Council, which established the Harry Read Memorial. Read worked as Carey's assistant until the 1955 merger of the AFL-CIO when he became the assistant to William F. Schnizler, the Secretary-Treasurer of the AFL-CIO. Read's writing career was not limited to the pages of newspapers. Early in his career with the C. E. Thomas Company, he co-authored two booksHistory of World War I and Woodrow Wilson, Life and Works. In the 1930s, he researched and wrote extensively on crime and politics, especially Al Capone, and later turned to the subject of parliamentary procedure in the 1940s. The House of Whispering Hate, a book about the prison experience at Leavenworth in Kansas, was published in 1932 with Read as a co-author. He self-published Manual of Parliamentary Law in 1941 and provided that work as a resource to assist the labor community with conducting meetings and negotiating with management. His wife, Lucy Read, continued to promote her husband's work after his death on November 22, 1957.
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.
Irish Home Rule Political Cartoons
This digital collection consists of 19th century political cartoons addressing Irish political issues of the time, including the Irish Repeal Movement, Irish Home Rule, Irish Nationalism and the Land War. While the majority of the collection consists of chromolithographs published in the 1880s by Irish newspapers, there are a few examples of political cartoons published in the 1840s by the British satire magazine Punch.

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