Habits of Compassion: Irish Catholic Nuns and the Origins of New York's Welfare System, 1830-1920

Habits of Compassion is a study of Irish-Catholic Sisters'tremendously successful work in founding charitable organizations inNew York City from the famine through the early 20th century.Maureen Fitzgerald argues that it was these nuns' championing of therights of the poor--especially poor women--that resulted in an explosionof state-supported services and programs. Unlike Protestant reformerswho argued that aid should be meagre and provisional (based onmeans-testing) to avert widespread dependence, Irish-Catholic nunsargued instead that the poor should be aided as an act of compassion.Positioning the nuns' activism as resistance to the cultural hegemonyof Protestantism, Fitzgerald contends that Catholic nuns offered strongand unequivocal moral leadership in condemning those who punishedthe poor for their poverty and unmarried women for sexualtransgression.