Voices from an Early American Convent

"In 1727, twelve nuns left France to establish a community of Ursuline nuns in New Orleans, the capital of the French colony of Louisiana. Their convent was the first in the territory that would eventually be part of the United States. Notable for establishing a school that educated all free girls, regardless of social rank, the Ursulines also ran an orphanage, administered the colony's military hospital, and sustained an aggressive program of catechesis among the enslaved population of colonial Louisiana that contributed to the development of a large, active Afro-Catholic congregation in New Orleans. In Voices from an Early American Convent, Emily Clark extends the boundaries of early American women's history through the first-hand accounts of these remarkable French female missionaries, in particular Marie Madeleine Hachard" -- publisher website (July 2007).