This work traces the ideological, institutional and social imperatives that shaped Philadelphia's Catholic community in the years between the American Revolution and the Civil War. The core of the book is a series of confrontations between Catholic bishops and dissenters, both lay and clerical.

In this perceptive and engaging history, Brigid O'Shea Merriman, O.S.F., studies the spiritual development and religious vision of Dorothy Day, a pioneer of American social Catholicism and co-founder of the Catholic Worker and the Catholic Worker movement. Merriman explores Day's spiritual roots in literature, especially the Scriptures, along with her sensibility and her aesthetic vision. The impact of Christian personalism, monasticism, and the retreat movement on her spirituality is also examined, including new material on Day's association with Thomas Merton and a critical analysis of the...