CSW Research Affiliate Brown Bag Talk
A talk by Kristine Gunnell, Research Affiliate, UCLA Center for the Study of Women
Committed to easing suffering wherever they find it, Daughters of Charity in the western United States founded Seton Institute for International Development in 1985. Through its fundraising and in-kind distribution programs, the institute offered targeted support for Catholic sisters engaged in primary health care activities in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. A case study of faith-based non-profits, the institute’s history illustrates Catholic efforts to strengthen transnational ties among sisters, while also promoting practices to spur systemic change to reduce poverty in local communities throughout the Global South.
Kristine Gunnell is a research affiliate at the UCLA Center for the Study of Women. Gunnell’s book, Daughters of Charity: Women, Religious Mission, and Hospital Care in Los Angeles, 1856-1927 (DePaul University Vincentian Studies Institute, 2013) illustrates the innovative ways that these Catholic sisters adapted to the changing demands of the emerging hospital industry while maintaining their religious mission to care for the sick and poor. While her previous work focused on the Daughters’ early history in Los Angeles, Gunnell has recently turned her attention to the sisters’ activities in the late twentieth century. Her current book project focuses on the efforts of the Daughters of Charity Foundation to promote systemic change as it seeks to combat poverty in California and elsewhere in the world.
