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Escaped Nuns: True Womanhood and the Campaign Against Convents in Antebellum America
Just five weeks after its publication in January 1836, Awful Disclosures of the Hotel Dieu Nunnery , billed as an escaped nun's shocking exposé of convent life, had already sold more than 20,000 copies. The book detailed gothic-style horror stories of licentious priests and abusive mothers superior, tortured nuns and novices, and infanticide. By the time the book was revealed to be a fiction and the author, Maria Monk, an imposter, it had already become one of the nineteenth century's best-selling books. In antebellum America only one book, Uncle Tom's Cabin , outsold it.
The success of Monk's book was no fluke, but rather a part of a larger phenomenon of anti-Catholic propaganda, riots, and nativist politics. The secrecy of convents stood as an oblique justification for suspicion of Catholics and the campaigns against them, which were intimately connected with cultural concerns regarding reform, religion, immigration, and, in particular, the role of women in the Republic. At a time when the term "female virtue" pervaded popular rhetoric, the image of the veiled nun represented a threat to the established American ideal of womanhood. Unable to marry, she was instead a captive of a foreign foe, a fallen woman, a white slave, and a foolish virgin. In the first half of the nineteenth century, ministers, vigilantes, politicians, and writers--male and female--forged this image of the nun, locking arms against convents. The result was a far-reaching antebellum movement that would shape perceptions of nuns, and women more broadly, in America.
The success of Monk's book was no fluke, but rather a part of a larger phenomenon of anti-Catholic propaganda, riots, and nativist politics. The secrecy of convents stood as an oblique justification for suspicion of Catholics and the campaigns against them, which were intimately connected with cultural concerns regarding reform, religion, immigration, and, in particular, the role of women in the Republic. At a time when the term "female virtue" pervaded popular rhetoric, the image of the veiled nun represented a threat to the established American ideal of womanhood. Unable to marry, she was instead a captive of a foreign foe, a fallen woman, a white slave, and a foolish virgin. In the first half of the nineteenth century, ministers, vigilantes, politicians, and writers--male and female--forged this image of the nun, locking arms against convents. The result was a far-reaching antebellum movement that would shape perceptions of nuns, and women more broadly, in America.
232 pages, Hardcover
Published September 21, 2018
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November 12, 2023
This is a fun topic, but an extremely frustrating book. The author holds so tight to her thesis - that men were threatened by nuns because they lived outside of the role of wife and mother - and she is blind to anything else. Nuns threatened "the cosmic order of things" - I believe there is some validity here! But the author becomes anti anti-Catholicism: Any criticism of convents or Catholicism is unfounded and must stem from fear of unmarried, independent women.
I'm no expert, but women were coerced into convents throughout history. And many priests have been sexually deviant, as we've seen in very recent times. And there was a history of punishment and abuse and deprivation in these institutions. And there is history of conflict between Catholics and Protestants. None of this factors in. Even when there were credible accusations of cruel punishments in convents, the author is quick to discredit them. She admits there was hard work in convents, but mostly her POV is that they offered women freedom to see the larger world, run institutions like schools and hospitals, and make business decisions. Feminist utopia.
When I got to the chapter on the parallels between anti-Mormonism and anti-Catholicism, I thought surely now the author will have to indulge in some mild criticisms. But no, Mormonism gets the same treatment. Mormon women all made choices with free will, they could leave at any time, polygamy may seem icky but these women were free agents. Nothing to see here, move on.
I enjoyed the salacious details of unreliable convent exposes, I enjoyed reading about the hypocrisy of men who saw themselves of liberators of nuns, but you can get that from some shorter articles, without all the gaslighting.
I'm no expert, but women were coerced into convents throughout history. And many priests have been sexually deviant, as we've seen in very recent times. And there was a history of punishment and abuse and deprivation in these institutions. And there is history of conflict between Catholics and Protestants. None of this factors in. Even when there were credible accusations of cruel punishments in convents, the author is quick to discredit them. She admits there was hard work in convents, but mostly her POV is that they offered women freedom to see the larger world, run institutions like schools and hospitals, and make business decisions. Feminist utopia.
When I got to the chapter on the parallels between anti-Mormonism and anti-Catholicism, I thought surely now the author will have to indulge in some mild criticisms. But no, Mormonism gets the same treatment. Mormon women all made choices with free will, they could leave at any time, polygamy may seem icky but these women were free agents. Nothing to see here, move on.
I enjoyed the salacious details of unreliable convent exposes, I enjoyed reading about the hypocrisy of men who saw themselves of liberators of nuns, but you can get that from some shorter articles, without all the gaslighting.
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