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Maryland Historical Society
Library of Maryland History
201 W. Monument Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
Phone: 410-685-3750
Fax: 410-385-2105
E-mail: library @mdhs.org
Buy the Book
Maryland
History In Prints: 1752-1900
by Laura Rice
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Asking if I would ever dare to be 'sassy' to the Sisters
again
From The Cornets: or the Hypocrisy of the Sisters of Charity Unveiled,
opp. p. 22
1877
Engraving
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The Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul was one of the most visible
Catholic orders in Maryland during the nineteenth century. During the many
epidemics of cholera, measles, small pox, and other deadly diseases, the
sisters treated victims without concern for their own safety. Although
their efforts were deeply appreciated and often publicly lauded, they became
the occasional target of a growing anti-Catholic sentiment. The influx
of so many new Catholic immigrants, who regarded a foreign Pope as their
spiritual leader, concerned many Protestant Americans. The odd appearance
of the nuns' costume (including an elaborate headpiece called a cornet)
coupled with the predominantly Irish origins of the sisters, further set
them apart from their Protestant neighbors.
Catholic orders, nuns in particular, were the targets of popular, sensationalized
fictions describing imprisonment and torture in convents around the country.
Baltimore's Sisters of Charity were accused in The Cornets: or the Hypocrisy
of the Sisters of Charity Unveiled, of unlawfully imprisoning the author
in Mount Hope Retreat, a hospital for the treatment of mental illness.
The alleged victim is depicted here in a straitjacket receiving a "head
bath" of cold water as she is held over a tub.
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