Dorothy Day

Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement helped challenge American Catholics to redefine immorality to include social injustice as well as traditional notions of sin and evil. Between 1880 and 1920, 23.5 Million immigrants settled in urban and rural centers throughout the US. Italian, Polish, Hungarian, Jewish, Greek, Chinese, Mexican, and Japanese immigrants formed a large working class utterly dependent on wages earned in factories, mines, mills and sweatshops. A rigid labor hierarchy emerged in which injured workers, single mothers, and chronically unemployed laborers did not survive. In 1933 Day and the CWM opened Houses of Hospitality in New York and Chicago where unemployed workers could find a free room and meal. Day and her supporters practiced voluntary poverty while devoting themselves to prayer and frequent reception of the sacraments. She later became an anti-war activist and prominent supporter of labor unions.

Sources: Bokenkotter, Thomas. A Concise History of the Catholic Church. Revised and Expanded Edition. New York and London: Doubleday, 2005. Pp 379-380.