Good Afternoon!

So I have been diligently working on my next project which I discussed last week a little bit. Mary Agnes Curran was an exceptional woman and she not only did service in the United States, but she also worked in Nicaragua and Mexico. She actually stayed in Nicaragua during their revolution and has documents she and other members in her order wrote. These documents describe living through specific battles and they represent the instability and danger within the country during this time. Unfortunately, due to the danger, Curran ended up leaving and moving to Oaxaca for ten years. In this time, she created a women's center that focused on teaching women how to provide for themselves and their families. There were certain instructional classes held that discussed nutrition and parenting techniques. This center also provided these women with jobs within the town so they could financially provide for their families or at least improve their living situation. Curran worked in this center until 1994 and then she decided to move back to the United States where she spent the last eight years of her life working in New Mexico.

This woman was extremely interesting and was very much driven by her faith. As a sister of the Maryknoll order, she began to develop a strong appreciation for the Latin culture. Before embarking on her mission trips to these Spanish speaking countries, she actually took Spanish language courses where she became fluent. In her final years when she was working in New Mexico, she created a similar instructional program as the one in Mexico. However, this focused on how to improve living conditions for undocumented immigrants.

In the display I am currently putting together, I am have already scanned some of the certificates she achieved. She obtain her second M.A. in Religious Studies from Mundelein College in 1982.

We are quite fortunate to say that this woman is a graduate of Mundelein College.

I also plan to scan the written documents of her stay in Nicaragua and make them a main focus of my display. I have been reading through her personal written entries that explain how this experience affected her, but it is not yet clear what she was specficially doing in the country. I will set out right now to answer this question.

Please stand by for the link to my first tumblr post for the WLA!

Take care!

Good Afternoon,

This past week I have been working on a post for the WLA blogger that focuses on the involvement of Helen Sauer Brown in issues of women's equality and war peace activism. I went through all of her speeches and writings in order to find precisely what I wanted to represent. I would submit a link to the blog post right now, however, I just submitted it to be revised by my supervisor so I will send it along next week when everything has been finalized. However, I can share its contents which highlight her education at Mundelein, parts of her war resistance letter, her involvement in peace marches in Washington D.C., speaking in Springfield, Illinois to advocate for the passage of the ERA amendment, and a wedding photo which was taken sixty-eight years ago. I was extremely fascinated by the life this woman led and how she was able to contribute so much to her community while raising nine kids. Something unfortunate about what we have in our archives is that there is no information on what she has been doing in the past ten or so years. I am sure that she has settled down recently, but I would be interested to know what she is still doing with her time. As I said earlier, I will submit the link in the upcoming post.

As for today, I have recently begun working on another project. This will focus on the life of Mary Agnes Curran. She was a teacher, social rights activist, and a missionary. She dedicated a majority of her life to working with Latina women in the United States who have experienced physical assault. Not only this, but she also brought in solar technology for households with no electricity. This was conducted through a ministry she created in Parajarito Masa, New Mexico. Another interesting component of this woman's life is that she was present during the Nicaraguan Revolution in which there was constant killing for a long period of time. Unfortunately, she ended up leaving this country, but did create a women's center in Mexico. There is a lot of information to highlight when studying this woman, and so I may spend more time than the last project creating my display. I need to be careful in not having a large focus and truly discussing the essentials of her life.  Please stay posted for the updates on my new project!

Cheers.

Good Evening,

This is my first official week of working at the WLA. I have decided to take on a project that focuses on Helen Sauer Brown. She graduated Mundelein College in 1944 and she also returned for her masters in religious studies which she received in 1970. She was extremely involved within her community and spend some time teaching Religion at Nazareth Academy. However, I will be focusing on her political career that involved marching in Washington D.C. as a peace activist and also in Springfield as an organizer of the Equal Rights Amendment on behalf of the Illinois Catholic Women. There are some speeches and letters that I have been reading that reveal her political and religious views. Below is a portion of one of the letters she wrote to the Nazareth Academy explaining why she did not agree with a war tax. Once I have collected enough information and structured what I want to say, I will be posting my work to the WLA blog.

This section of her letter is only a mere representation of the frustration she felt towards the American government during the Vietnam War. Brown believed that it was illogical that the government was spending money on certain issues that, in her opinion, did not concern the United States. She strongly advocated for addressing the problems within this country and not allowing issues of war distract Americans from problems such as poverty or gender inequality. 

All information was provided by: 

• http://www.luc.edu/media/lucedu/wla/pdfs/Brown,_Hellen_Sauer1.pdf
• http://content.library.luc.edu/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/coll7&CISOPTR=10&REC=1
• http://content.library.luc.edu/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=%2Fcoll18&CISOPTR=7&DMSCALE=50&DMWIDTH=600&DMHEIGHT=600&DMMODE=viewer&DMFULL=0&DMX=940&DMY=300&DMTEXT=&DMTHUMB=1&REC=12&DMROTATE=0&x=139&y=256

Good Afternoon,

This is my first official week of working at the WLA. I have decided to take on a project that focuses on Helen Sauer Brown. She graduated Mundelein College in 1944 and she also returned for her masters in religious studies which she received in 1970. She was extremely involved within her community and spend some time teaching Religion at Nazareth Academy. However, I will be focusing on her political career that involved marching in Washington D.C. as a peace activist and also in Springfield as an organizer of the Equal Rights Amendment on behalf of the Illinois Catholic Women. There are some speeches and letters that I have been reading that reveal her political and religious views. Below is a portion of one of the letters she wrote to the Nazareth Academy explaining why she did not agree with a war tax. Once I have collected enough information and structured what I want to say, I will be posting my work to the WLA blog.

This section of her letter is only a mere representation of the frustration she felt towards the American government during the Vietnam War. Brown believed that it was illogical that the government was spending money on certain issues that, in her opinion, did not concern the United States. She strongly advocated for addressing the problems within this country and not allowing issues of war distract Americans from problems such as poverty or gender inequality. 

All information was provided by: 

• http://www.luc.edu/media/lucedu/wla/pdfs/Brown,_Hellen_Sauer1.pdf
• http://content.library.luc.edu/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/coll7&CISOPTR=10&REC=1
• http://content.library.luc.edu/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=%2Fcoll18&CISOPTR=7&DMSCALE=50&DMWIDTH=600&DMHEIGHT=600&DMMODE=viewer&DMFULL=0&DMX=940&DMY=300&DMTEXT=&DMTHUMB=1&REC=12&DMROTATE=0&x=139&y=256

Orientation!

Greetings! I have just completed my first day of work at the WLA. For those of you who are not familiar with Piper Hall, it is a four story building on campus that holds the archives for many organizations and people that represent female leadership. Although today was only my orientation, I was given an intensive tour of the facility and I learned in extensive detail how the dynamics of archiving works. For example, I spent about a good thirty minutes surveying the basement because this is where the majority of all of the information is stored. I learned that each column is broken down into 4 letters (A-D) and each row is broken down into (1-6). The number 1 represents the top row which is always empty and the numbers only go up with each row going down. I hope that was not too confusing. My supervisor told me that I will be working on a number of research projects that can cover anything from specific events to organizations, to individual activists. This weekend I will spend time online searching more about topics that interest me and I begin my official research on Tuesday morning. I will have a lot more to say then, but I am very excited to have this position and to see what happens. Lastly, I inserted a photo that I learned a little bit about from my supervisor. The artist's name is Virginia Gaertner Broderick and she is one of the most influential religious artists of the 21st century. Also, she attended Mundelein college and graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1939. This is only the beginning of the thorough investigations I will conduct, so everyone should be waiting in suspense for my next post. Thank you and take care!