{"product_id":"9780253108593","title":"No Cross, No Crown: Black Nuns in Nineteenth-Century New Orleans","description":"\u003cp\u003eNineteenth-century New Orleans was a diverse city. The French-speaking\u003cbr\u003e Catholic Creoles, whether black, white, or racially mixed -- so different from the\u003cbr\u003e city's English-speaking residents -- inspired intense curiosity and speculation. But\u003cbr\u003e none of the city's inhabitants evoked as much wonder as did the Sisters of the Holy\u003cbr\u003e Family, whose mission was to evangelize slaves and free people of color and to care\u003cbr\u003e for the poor, sick, and elderly.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThese women, whose community\u003cbr\u003e still thrives, are portrayed in an account written between 1896 and 1898 by one of\u003cbr\u003e their sisters, Mary Bernard Deggs, who shortly before her death made it her mission\u003cbr\u003e to record the remarkable historical journey the women had taken to serve those of\u003cbr\u003e their race. Although Deggs did not officially join the Sisters of the Holy Family\u003cbr\u003e until 1873, she was a student at the sisters' early school on Bayou Road and thus\u003cbr\u003e would have known, as a child, Henriette Delille, the founder and first mother\u003cbr\u003e superior of the Sisters of the Holy Family, and the other\u003cbr\u003ewomen who joined\u003cbr\u003e her.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis account captures, in a most graphic way, the founding of\u003cbr\u003e the\u003cbr\u003eSisters of the Holy Family in New Orleans in 1842 and the difficult\u003cbr\u003e years that followed. It was not until 1852 that the foundresses were able\u003cbr\u003e to\u003cbr\u003etake their first official vows and exchange their blue percale gowns\u003cbr\u003e for\u003cbr\u003eblack ones (and it was 1873 before they were permitted to wear a\u003cbr\u003e formal\u003cbr\u003ereligious habit). Shortly before Delille's death in 1862, Union\u003cbr\u003e forces\u003cbr\u003eseized the city, and Delille's successor, Juliette Gaudin, faced\u003cbr\u003e dire\u003cbr\u003eeconomic circumstances. The war and postwar years economically\u003cbr\u003e devastated\u003cbr\u003eNew Orleans and its population. Freed slaves poured into the\u003cbr\u003e city,\u003cbr\u003eunintentionally adding themselves to the already overwhelming mission\u003cbr\u003e of\u003cbr\u003ethe sisters. Those were the poorest and most uncertain years the\u003cbr\u003e sisters\u003cbr\u003ewere to face.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWe know very little about Sister\u003cbr\u003e Mary Bernard Deggs herself, but her history of the early years of the Sisters of the\u003cbr\u003e Holy Family, written more than a century ago and reproduced here in edited form,\u003cbr\u003e makes it clear that today's community of women -- their dedication to the poor, to\u003cbr\u003e education, to the care of the elderly and orphaned -- comes from a long and\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003ecomplex tradition that grew in response to the social needs of\u003cbr\u003e \"their\u003cbr\u003epeople.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Indiana University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47112506867952,"sku":"9780253108593","price":18.35,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780253108593_p0.jpg?v=1763680884","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780253108593","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}