Open, Vast, and Inclusive: Catholic Women's History is Early North American History

This essay, adapted from the keynote address of the 2019 Triennial Conference on the History of Women Religious at St. Mary's College, South Bend, IN, argues that both early North American history and American Catholic history would benefit from combining their strengths and insights and broadening their collective reach. For centuries, misogynistic anti-Catholic propaganda influenced the writing of Anglophone early North American history and restricted our vision for where Catholic history might be found. Recently, some early North American historians and institutions have embraced a vision of #VastEarlyAmerica outside of British Colonial America and in Catholic colonies. The history of Catholic women religious offers early Americanists an opportunity to broaden their imaginations and to tell new stories. In this essay, the author describes some of her experiences and decisions in writing The Many Captivities of Esther Wheelwright, a book about an eighteenth-century New England Puritan girl taken captive and adopted by the Wabanaki who later became an Ursuline nun and mother superior of the community. This kind of story could serve as a model for finding new stories and writing a more open, vast, and inclusive history of early North America.