Though born in Scotland, Redpath became interested in uncovering the causes of the famine that had swept Ireland in the late 1870’s. The Tribune agreed to his proposal and during 1880 and 1881, Redpath made three trips to Ireland, sponsored in part by The Tribune and The Boston Pilot, to ascertain the causes of the famine. While in Ireland, he became a supporter of Charles Stewart Parnell and the Irish Land League, and a staunch opponent of the landlord system that kept the Irish people in poverty.

During these years, Redpath wrote numerous articles and delivered lectures throughout the United States supporting the cause of Irish land reform and, eventually, Irish freedom.

Reacting to the pro-English stance of most American newspapers concerning Ireland, in July 1882 Redpath bought the New York based newspaper McGee’s Illustrated Weekly from its publisher, Maurice Francis Egan and determined to make it a vehicle to support land reform in Ireland and promote Irish independence.

July 15, 1882 issue of McGee's Illustrated Weekly noting the sale of the paper to Redpath.

The first issue of the newly named Redpath’s McGee’s Illustrated Weekly appeared July 22, 1882.

Redpath’s editorial comments in the first issue clearly declared the pro-Irish temper of the paper:

“I shall try to make this journal an interpreter between American and Irish friends of liberty. As soon as Americans know the true story of Ireland they will support her in every wise effort to overthrow the despotic rule of England.”

By the third issue, published on August 5, 1882, Redpath had deemed the title too confusing and shortened it to Redpath’s Illustrated Weekly. Though founded as an activist newspaper devoted to the cause of reform in Ireland, the paper also covered Irish culture in general with sections such as “Pictures of Irish Life” and illustrations of prominent Irishmen, Irish-Americans and “friends of Ireland.”

Redpath’s opposition to English rule in Ireland and the large Anglo-Irish landlords he saw as responsible for Ireland’s misfortune branched into other articles in his newspaper such as anti-landlordism in New York City and opposition to English imperialism in Egypt. The paper also supported other social causes such as women’s suffrage, civil service reform and the labor movement.

Depictions of tenement housing in New York City

Illustration showing British imperialism in Egypt

Redpath also realized that a newspaper devoted primarily to Ireland and social reform may have  limited appeal, so he tried to broaden its readership by including humorous pieces, domestic and foreign news blurbs, sheet music, poems and serialized novels. At times the paper also included a Boys and Girls Department and a Ladies Department.

Section devoted to women's fashion

Changing financial circumstances and lack of interest in Ireland and social issues caused gradual changes in the newspaper’s format and content. With the February 24, 1883 issue, the name of the newspaper was shortened further to Redpath’s Weekly. This reflected the reduction in the number of illustrations due to rising publication costs.

By August 1883, the paper had become more literary and less a vehicle for Irish freedom and social activism with more space devoted to serialized fiction, including French and Russian works translated by associate editor, Jeremiah C. Curtin. Included were perhaps the earliest serializations of stories by Jules Verne. These changes, however, were not enough to save the paper and the last issue of Redpath’s Weekly was published on August 23, 1884.

This 1883 issue included Part II of Verne's "The American Robinson Crusoe"

PAHRC has the most complete run of Redpath’s Illustrated Weekly.

The paper has also been digitized as part the Digital Library @ Villanova University. To view the digitized issues click here.

References:

McKivigan, John. Forgotten Firebrand: James Redpath and the Making of Nineteenth Century America. Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London. 2008.

For over sixty years, Robert Halvey served as a freelance photographer for the Catholic Standard and Times, often as a volunteer.  His career as a photographer began in the 1930’s, taking photos for the Roman Catholic High School newspaper and neighborhood newspaper The Kensington Critic. He was then a U.S. Army photographer during World War II, for which he received a Legion of Merit, and later a staff photographer for Pennsylvania Hospital.

Halvey's award winning photo of Mother Teresa at Philadelphia’s Eucharistic Congress, 1976

Having never discarded a photo, the collection contains negatives from the entirety of Halvey’s career, from 1935 to 1999. These images capture presidents, popes, entertainers, as well as everyday participants in Philadelphia Catholic life. In addition to photos taken for The Catholic Standard and Times there are photos taken for organizations and schools such as Immaculata College, and local events such as St. Patrick’s Day parades. Halvey once said, “I think many of my pictures will last long after I’m gone,” and PAHRC intends to digitize the negatives to fulfill this prediction.

Luciano Pavarotti and the late Cardinal Bevilacqua, 1989

Young girl with The Catholic Standard and Times, 1958

The collection currently consists of 39 archival boxes filled with envelopes of negatives. The various types of negatives in the collection demonstrate how the photographic process evolved throughout Halvey’s career.  With the exception of several early glass negatives, the collection contains primarily cellulose acetate film, or safety film.  These negatives are in 4×5 single sheets and 3×5 35mm or 7.5×1.5 70mm strips. Safety film is named for its inflammability, but is nonetheless unstable and subject to deterioration.  This makes reformatting the images crucial to their preservation.

The first step in preparing the photographic negatives for digitization was getting an estimate of the number of images, or negatives, in the collection. Due to the large size of the collection, another volunteer, Gillian Grady, and I used sampling to accomplish this task. After counting the number of envelopes in each box, we counted the number of negatives in a sample population of envelopes, as each envelope contains a sometimes vastly different number of negatives. Based on the results, we can reasonably estimate that the collection has approximately 350,000 negatives.

Our next step is to begin cataloging the images using Past Perfect. Stay tuned for more blog posts about this project!

Sources:

Baldwin, Lou. “Today’s Picture – Tomorrow’s History.” The Catholic Standard and Times [Philadelphia] 5 Feb. 2004: 3, 29.

Valverde, Maria F. Photographic Negatives: Nature and Evolution of Processes. Rochester: Image Permanence Institute, 2004.

March is a month of basketball, when the NCAA championship tournament takes over sports pages and airwaves. But March is also Women’s History Month and at the intersection of these two things, we find Immaculata University, home of the “Mighty Macs.”

Forty years ago this month, the women’s basketball team of Immaculata College, as it was known then, won the first women’s national basketball championship and won it again in 1973 and 1974.  This team from a small, Catholic women’s college outside Philadelphia garnered national recognition for women’s basketball and women’s collegiate sports.  The team is still garnering national attention with the 2011 release of the film, The Mighty Macs.

Women had been playing collegiate basketball since 1893 but it was only in 1971 that a full court, five player game was officially adopted.  Now men and women were recognizably playing the same sport.  Immaculata still preserved some of the more modest aspects of early women’s basketball.  Their players wore skirts on the court until the 1974-1975 season.  But these women still played aggressively and intensely – running, jumping, and reveling in the opportunity to play hard.

Immaculata vs. West Chester, 1974

The 1972 championship team just barely made it into the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) tournament that year. (The NCAA Women’s Division Championship was not inaugurated until the 1981-82 season.) Though the team had a 24-1 record under coach Cathy Rush that year, most people thought the tiny women’s college couldn’t compete at the national level.  But at the tournament in Normal, Illinois, the team won game after game and finally defeated their rival West Chester State (the school that had handed them their single defeat that season) in the championship game with a score of 52-48.

Coach Cathy Rush, 1974

The following year, the Mighty Macs repeated their success but with a much bigger audience.  Local sports writers covered the games and the entire Immaculata College community supported the team, including the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary who had founded the school.

Immaculata vs. Stroudsburg State, 1974

In the 1973-74 regular season, the Mighty Macs were nationally recognized and their games were major sporting events.  They played the first nationally televised women’s basketball game against the University of Maryland.  The team played Queen’s College in the first women’s game in Madison Square Garden. The Macs boasted a 35-game win streak that year and a third national championship.

Immaculata vs. Stroudbsurg State, 30th victory, 1974

The Immaculata team was welcomed at Philadelphia International Airport by a crowd of their supporters.  Family, friends, and supporters of the Immaculata community all turned out.

Returning to Philadelphia after the team's third straight championship, 1974

The team went on to place second in the AIAW tournament for the next two years and made it to the semifinals in 1977.  Cathy Rush retired from coaching that year and Immaculata’s dominance of women’s basketball waned as public universities, with more money for recruitment and scholarships, began to take over.  The passage of Title IX in 1972 allowed more women than ever to play sports but shifted the spotlight away from the small women’s college in Chester County.  Nevertheless, the women of Immaculata College, both the basketball team and their supporters, proved to the nation that women could play basketball and play it well.

The photographs shown here are from PAHRC’s Robert and Teresa Halvey Photograph Collection.

Sources:

Byrne, Julie. O God of Players. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003.
“Remember the Glory Days!, Program for the 25th Anniversary of First National Women’s Collegiate Basketball Championship won by the Mighty Macs of Immaculata College”. Immaculata, PA: Immaculata College, 1997.

PAHRC’s significant collection of periodicals includes newspapers and journals related to black Catholics. Among these are the earliest newspapers published by and for the black Catholic community. These newspapers also covered issues relating to the African American community in a broader sense.

According to Cyprian Davis, author of The History of Black Catholics in the United States, the black Catholic laity emerged as a cohesive and influential force during the last couple decades of the 19th century. In November 1889, a number of prominent men (the actual number is not known) gathered in Baltimore for the first black Catholic lay congress in the country’s history.

The emergence of this community was largely due to the efforts of Daniel Rudd, the “leading Catholic representative of the Negro Race.” It also appears to have been due to the significant increase in missionary work among African Americans around this time as evidenced by the considerable number of journals devoted to black Catholic missions that began to be published towards the end of the 19th century.

It was in 1886 that Daniel Rudd started the weekly black newspaper American Catholic Tribune, initially titled Ohio State Tribune in Springfield, Ohio. The newspaper was then published in Cincinnati before moving to Detroit where it continued to operate until 1899. Rudd noted the paper would “give the great Catholic Church a hearing and show that it is worthy of at least a fair consideration at the hands of our race, being as it is the only place on this Continent where rich and poor, white and black, must drop prejudice at the threshold and go hand in hand to the altar.”[1]

American Catholic Tribune, February 25, 1887

PAHRC has a fairly significant, though incomplete, run of the American Catholic Tribune from 1887 to 1894. According to WorldCat, only several libraries worldwide have this newspaper.

The Research Center also has several issues of The Journal, a weekly Philadelphia newspaper published in 1892 by Swann and Hart. Though it lasted less than a year, The Journal spoke to Philadelphia’s growing number of Black Catholics. It appears that PAHRC is the only institution that has this publication.

PAHRC also has a single issue of The Catholic Herald (February 18, 1905) which was published in Washington D.C. I have not been able to find any information about this publication. The paper was given official approbation by James Cardinal Gibbons and describes itself as “The only colored Catholic paper authorized by the Church.” Its masthead also read: “The Catholic Church is the only hope of the Negro.”

PAHRC’s collection of periodicals also includes several journals relating to black Catholic missions. Published by religious orders that devoted their missionary work to blacks, such as the Josephite Fathers, these journals not only offer insight into these orders and their activities, but also document the African American communities with which the orders interacted.

PAHRC has a significant, though incomplete, run of The Josephite Harvest, previously The Colored Harvest, from the first year of its publication in 1888 to 1956. Based in Baltimore and educated at St. Joseph’s Seminary, the Josephites established black missions throughout the country and abroad.

The Colored Harvest (October 1893)

A photograph of St. Francis school and church in Natchez, Missouri (October 1893 issue)

Photographs depicting May processions and high school graduates from several parish schools and academies in Baltimore and the surrounding area (July-August 1923 issue)

Other journals in PAHRC’s collection include The Flight, published by the Institute of Mission Helpers in Baltimore, and Mission fields at home followed by Mission published by the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament in Philadelphia. Founded by Saint Katharine Drexel, the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament devoted themselves to mission work among blacks and Native Americans.

PAHRC’s collection not only includes the archives of the Philadelphia Archdiocese, but also the collections of the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia, the oldest Catholic historical society in the country. In it’s 1885 charter, the ACHS stated that it’s purpose “shall be the preservation and publication of Catholic American historical documents, the investigation of American Catholic history, especially that of Philadelphia, and the development of interest in Catholic historical research.” It appears, however, that like many historical societies, the ACHS  sometimes accepted materials that did not relate to it’s mission statement, or fall within a collection scope- if one had even been articulated- especially if one of its members owned or had access to historic materials.

An interesting small collection that seems to fall within this category is the David Lynch Papers, 1830-1865 (MC 13), possibly collected by the ACHS due to the mere fact that Lynch may have been Catholic. A tobacconist from Pittsburgh, PA, David Lynch (1793-1860) had served as a major in the land and marine services in the War of 1812. Appearing to have been politically well-connected, the governor of Pennsylvania appointed Lynch as an auctioneer for the city of Pittsburgh around 1830. Lynch was also appointed as Pittsburgh’s Postmaster in 1833.

Certificate of Lynch's appointment as an auctioneer for the City of Pittsburgh, February 9, 1830(?)

A staunch Democrat who was actively involved in politics, David Lynch happened to be  friends with fellow Pennsylvanian James Buchanan. The collection includes a few letters between the two men that were written during Buchanan’s terms as a Congressman and President.

In the following letter, dated December 23, 1850, sent from his Wheatland estate in Lancaster, PA, Buchanan provides Lynch with a lengthy response regarding the likelihood of Buchanan becoming President. The letter provides a good deal of insight into Buchanan’s personality and political philosophies as well as the current state of politics in both Pennsylvania and the country. Part of the first page of the letter reads:

You know I am not a sanguine man, nor is my heart so fixed upon that high honor that defeat will cost me ‘a night’s sleep or a meal’s victuals.’ I firmly believe that the time has at length arrived when the Democracy of Pennsylvania may furnish a President to the union should they think proper…I have every reason to believe that all the Southern States are decidedly friendly to my nomination. Indeed some of their leading men say, they will support no other Northern man.

Page 1

Part of the second page reads:

There is an element now actively at work which may defeat all calculations and many leading men of both parties are engaged in it. Even the Washington Union appears to lean that way. This is to sink the names of Democrat and Whig and to form a new Union party.

Page 2

Buchanan shares his views on the separation of church and state on the third page:

If there is anything in world which I do despise it is attempts to bring religion into politics and to  make a man’s creed operate against him, I don’t care to what sect he may belong.

Page 3

Page 4

The collection also includes estate papers relating to James Buchanan’s Pennsylvania properties, presumably because Lynch as an auctioneer was somehow involved with the transfer of land.

A small collection that seemingly has little or nothing to do with Catholicism in America, the David Lynch Papers, nevertheless has historic value. Materials in the collection offer a glimpse into state and national politics during the antebellum period, including information relating to a significant national figure.

A full finding aid for the collection will be available shortly.

Born and raised in Philadelphia, Foley was a graduate of St. Joseph’s Preparatory School and St. Joseph’s College (now University). He was ordained a priest on May 19, 1962 by then-Archbishop John Krol.

John P. Foley, circa 1964

His earliest assignments were Sacred Heart in Havertown and St. John the Evangelist Parish in Philadelphia, and also studies at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas in Rome where he earned his licentiate and doctorate in philosophy. He taught for a year at Cardinal Dougherty High School, and from 1967 to 1984 he served on the adjunct faculty of St. Charles Seminary teaching ethics and metaphysics.

In 1970, Foley became editor of the official diocesan newspaper, The Catholic Standard and Times. During the decade previous he had served as assistant editor and Vatican correspondent for the newspaper, and received his master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University.

circa 1975

He maintained his position as editor for the next 14 years, a period which saw some of the most important events in the history of the Philadelphia Church, including the Forty-First International Eucharistic Congress, held in 1976, the canonization of St. John Neumann in 1977 and the visit to Philadelphia of Pope John Paul II in 1978.

From 1966 until 1974 Foley was also co-producer and co-host of Philadelphia Catholic Hour on radio station WFIL.

On April 9, 1984 Pope John Paul II named him an Archbishop and appointed him head of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Social Communications, a position he held for more than 23 years. Foley was elevated to the College of Cardinals on November 24, 2007.

Celebrating Foley's appointment as Archbisop, 1984

For more information on Cardinal Foley see the Archdiocese of Philadelphia website.

Photos of the Cardinal are from of the Halvey Photo Collection.

During my time volunteering at the Archives, I’ve been cataloging miscellaneous pamphlets from the late nineteenth century into PastPerfect, which are now accessible in the PAHRC’s online catalog. Within these hundreds of pamphlets are speeches given by members of the clergy, last will and testaments, and booklets on a variety of topics. I recently came across a number of documents related to the “Irish Question.”

The Irish Question, concerning Irish nationalism and independence, spanned the time period from around the mid 19th to the mid 20th century. Religion and politics were both prominent topics in this time of conflict, but most of the pamphlets I’ve cataloged so far relate to the Land War in Ireland over the centuries old landlordism system.

By 1879, about 800 families owned half of the country’s land and acted as landlords, renting small plots of land out to the majority of the population (an estimated five million people). The Franco-Prussian war of 1870 and the American Civil War created an economic depression that spread to Ireland. This depression, combined with the collapse of the potato crop and a poultry cholera epidemic, led to a great deal of tenants falling behind or not being able to pay their rent. Despite the grave difficulties renters faced, land owners continued to increase their rent. These crises led to the Irish Land War.

By the fall of 1879, tenants organized to create The Irish National Land League with the ultimate goal of abolishing landlordism. Members acted out through protests, militant riots, and even assassinations. Possibly the most famous tactic used was boycotting: landlords and people who opposed the league were socially ostracized, and people refused to work or sell produce to landlords and their supporters.

Many of the pamphlets I’ve come across were either published by or discuss the Irish National Land League; others were published by or for subgroups of the land league like the Irish National Land League of the United States. The content of the pamphlets include support and endorsements for the movement, reports of the league’s annual conventions, and booklets discussing the Irish Land War from different viewpoints.

There are several ways to find documents associated with the Irish Question and its many subtopics, like the Land War, using PAHRC’s online catalog. Users can perform a keyword search for a particular term of interest. The Click & Search function can sometimes be more helpful, since it allows users to browse the subjects and names assigned to these documents.

Reference: Fin. “An Introduction to The Land War 1879-1882.” Irish History Podcast (blog). May 20, 2011. http://irishhistorypodcast.ie/2011/05/20/an-introduction-to-the-land-war-1879-1882/. (Accessed November 14, 2011)

The Parish Calendars are similar to current parish bulletins in that they contain such information as parish events as well as marriage and death announcements. Unlike the weekly bulletins, however, the calendars were printed monthly and include much more content. They provide parish history information, including reprinted articles or excerpts from the diocesan newspaper The Catholic Standard and Times that covered prominent events such as the dedication of a church or an anniversary celebration of the founding of a parish. They also have articles on various topics that were reprinted from notable Catholic newspapers throughout the country as well as editorials concerning proper Catholic behavior.

Parish calendars can prove useful for researchers interested in the history of a parish or even for those conducting genealogical research. For social and cultural historians, they offer a glimpse into parish, and more broadly, Catholic life during the first half of the 20^th century.

As someone with an interest in film, I actually came across some intriguing  film history finds finds while going through this collection.

This  article entitled “Faith of an Actress” is from St. Cyril’s (East Lansdowne, Pa.) Parish Monthly Calendar dating from July of 1939. The article is about a Catholic actress named Elinor Flynn who was in movies during the late 1920s and 1930s. Although the article says Flynn appeared in 39 films, she only has 5 credits on IMDB. I am guessing that this is because most of her movie roles were as bit parts that were uncredited. Flynn also did work on Broadway and radio. Sadly, Flynn died at the age of 28 in an automobile accident.

The article praises Flynn not only for her career, but also for her strong Catholic faith. Flynn is noted for saying the rosary every evening as well as making the sign of the cross before she went on stage. The article tells us that Flynn was a close friend of Rt. Rev. Monsignor Fulton J. Sheen, better known as Archbishop Sheen. Yes, this is the same Sheen who became famous as one of the first televangelists. His television show Life is Worth Living ran from 1951 through 1957 and drew tens of millions of viewers each week.

This article, entitled “A Generous Non-Catholic”,  appeared in St. Joseph Church’s (Downingtown, Pa.) Feb. 1927 monthly parish calendar. The piece praises American actor James K. Hackett for entertaining the troops in WWI. Hackett was ineligible to fight in the war due to a knee injury he sustained while performing in Macbeth (as the title character) on stage. Although Hackett was not a Catholic himself, this Catholic publication was impressed that he helped the Knights of Columbus and supported the troops by entertaining them. The article also serves as an obituary since it informs us that Hackett died in Paris on November 8th, 1926 at the age of 57.

The article is noteworthy for its praise of a non-Catholic at a time when anti-Catholic sentiment was commonplace. Hackett was able to put religious differences aside to work with Catholics and entertain the troops, which the tone of the article seems to imply did not happen too often back then. Hackett is virtually unknown in 2011, but he was certainly a popular actor in his day and still remains an interesting historical figure.

There are two related articles within this August 1940 calendar on the topic of children watching movies. Both articles are fascinating as they show that children were a large demographic of the movie-going public in 1940. I’ve heard some people say that movie audiences are younger in 2011 than ever before, but I’d like to see some data to back that up. The first article not only says kids see a lot of movies, but that they are going by themselves without parents/families.

Where the first article brings up religion and morals, the second article is secular as it is about a doctor discussing the effects of movies on children. The doctor says that constant movie watching may cause youngster to be high strung and want to be “always on the go.”

While I didn’t have time to go through each page of these calendars, another parish that stood out was Church of the Holy Infancy in Bethlehem, Pa. which showed “motion pictures” each Sunday in a parish building. Here is the first article announcing the showing of these movies from October, 1926.

Robert Maitland O’Reilly (1845-1912) was the 20th Surgeon General of the United States Army serving from September 7, 1902 to January 14, 1909.  O’Reilly served a long military medical career beginning as a medical cadet in August 1862 during the Civil War.  Notable accomplishments include a position as the physician at the White House during both of President Grover Cleveland’s administrations, Chief Surgeon of the First Independent Division at the beginning of the Spanish-American War, and delegate at the International Conference for the Revision of the Geneva Convention in Geneva in 1906.  The collection contains correspondence, general orders, assignments, certificates of appointment, circulars, clippings, invitations, a notebook and a scrapbook.

O’Reilly led a long and successful military career starting as a medical cadet during the Civil War.  His first assignment was at Cuyler General Hospital in Philadelphia followed by a general field hospital in Chattanooga, Tennessee in March 1864 where he writes almost daily to his mother.  These letters to his mother are the bulk of the collection.  Below is a typical letter in which O’Reilly discusses his main duty of tabulating the lists of wounded and killed soldiers into reports.

Robert M. O'Reilly to his mother Ellen O'Reilly, June 21, 1864 (Front)

Robert M. O'Reilly to his mother Ellen O'Reilly, June 21, 1864 (Back)

On March 24, 1901 O’Reilly’s son Jack died unexpectedly in early adulthood of peritonitis.  Below is a telegram and letter informing his sister, Mary “Siss” O’Reilly, of the event.

Telegram from Robert M. O'Reilly to Mary O'Reilly, October 24, 1901

Robert O'Reilly to Mary O'Reilly, October 24, 1901 (Front)

Robert O'Reilly to Mary O'Reilly, October 24, 1901 (Back)

When the Civil War ended O’Reilly finished his medical studies at the University of Pennsylvania.  After graduating in 1866 he served in the army around the country and was continually promoted to higher ranking positions.  The actual certificates are large in scale, below is a letter congratulating O’Reilly on his new position as Assistant Surgeon.

Letter from War Department, August 5, 1867

Letter from War Department, August 5, 1867

A high point in the collection is a scrapbook kept while O’Reilly was abroad serving as a delegate at the 1906 International Conference for the Revisions of the Geneva Convention for the conference.  The scrapbook contains calling cards, menus, invitations, and notes.

Scrapbook page, 1906

Scrapbook page, 1906

Herman Joseph Heuser (1851-1933) was a Catholic intellectual and prolific writer who influenced scholarly circles and clerical life in the United States and abroad through his literary work. For thirteen years he aided in the editing of the American Catholic Quarterly Review run by his mentor Monsignor James Andrew Corcoran. Heuser served as the editor of the American Ecclesiastical Review from 1889-1927, with a brief interruption from 1914-1919 when Reverend William Turner served as editor. In addition to the AER he published The Dolphin, a supplemental Catholic literary magazine, from 1900-1908. He was ordained on February 2, 1876 becoming a full time seminary professor at the time of ordination and teaching at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary for over fifty years.

The bulk of the collection is correspondence, both personal and professional with the primary concern being articles in the AER or The Dolphin.  Mother Katharine Drexel,  Louise Imogen Guiney, Thomas Eakins, Leopold Stokowski, and Oliver Wendell Holmes are among some of the  distinguished correspondents of Heuser.

Katharine Drexel (1858-1955) was a nun dedicated to identifying and attending to the needs of Native Americans and African Americans and protesting the injustices of racism. Born to a family which owned a large banking fortune, Drexel used her wealth to fund missions and schools. She was beatified by Pope John Paul II on November 20, 1988 and canonized on October 1, 2000. In the letter below Drexel asks questions about the new constitution for her order.

Katharine Drexel to Herman Heuser, front

Katharine Drexel to Herman Joseph Heuser, inside

Katharine Drexel to Herman Joseph Heuser, back

Poet and essayist Louise Imogen Guiney (1861-1920) frequently wrote to Heuser regarding her articles in the AER and The Dolphin.  Below she asks that her piece remain unsigned.

Louise Imogen Guiney to Herman Joseph Heuser, May 15, 1912, front

Louise Imogen Guiney to Herman Joseph Heuser, May 15, 1912, back

Thomas Eakins (1844-1916) was an American Realist painter. He studied and taught at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia and frequently painted portraits.  In this letter to Heuser, Eakins asks him to translate a phrase into Latin for a portrait of a woman who plans on giving the painting to her son who is learning Latin.  He also mentions a portrait of Dr. Patrick Garvey he has painted in 1902, hoping it has been found and hung in the (St. Charles Borromeo) Seminary.

Thomas Eakins to Herman Joseph Heuser, June 28, 1908, front

Thomas Eakins to Herman Joseph Heuser, June 28, 1908, back

Leopold Stokowski (1882-1977) was a conductor known for his free hand style. This letter thanks Heuser for his letter about Bach’s St. Matthew Passion and his hopes that performing the piece annually will inspire the public to love it as much as they do.

Leopold Stokowski to Herman Joseph Heuser, April 17, 1917

Oliver Wendell Holmes (1841-1953) served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Count of the United States from 1902-1932. Holmes was concerned with Heuser’s work concerning Canon Patrick Augustine Sheehan, an Irish Roman Catholic priest who was an author and activist. In this letter discusses Holmes reading proofs of Heuser’s biography on Sheehan, Canon Sheehan of Doneraile.

Oliver Wendell Holmes to Herman Joseph Heuser, May 1, 1917