Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 11.djvu/54

This page needs to be proofread.

NEW YORK


28


NEW YORK


in 1906. and the work was continued by the secular clergy of the arclidiocoso. A further stop in provid- ing fiicilitios for soiniiiarv training was taken up by Archbishop Farley in Soplciuber, 1903, by tlic o)H'ning of Cathedral College for the preparatory studies of ecclesiastical students.

In the cause of education the work done by the Catholic publishers must be noted; for New York, with the increase of its Catholic population, dovelojied also into a great producing and distributing centre for Catholic literature of all kinds. It is claimed for Bernard Domin who arrived in New York in ISOo, an exile from Ireland, that he was the first publisher of exclusively Catholic works in the United .States. His edition of Pastorini's "History of the Christian Church" (1807) was the first Catholic book published in New York. The next year he issued an edition of Dr. Fletcher's "Reflections on the Spirit of Religious Controversy", for which he had 144 city subscribers. There were 318 for the Pivstorini book, and these two lists make an interesting directory of Catholic New York families at the opening of the nineteenth cen- tury. Dornin left New York for Baltimore In 1809. He was followed in New York by Matthew Field who pubhshed "at his library 177 Bowery within a few doors of Delancey St." the first American year book, "The Catholic Laity's Directory to the Church Ser- vice: with an almanac for the year 1817". About 1823 John Doyle began to pubhsh books at 237 Broad- way, and, up to 1849, when he went to San Francisco, he had issued many books of instruction and devotion. Most of the Doyle plates were taken over by Edward Dunigan, who had associated with him in business his half-brother James B. Kirker. He was the first pub- lisher to encourage Catholic authors to give him their writings. John Gilmary Shea's early histories were published by this firm, as was a fine edition of Hay- dock's Bible (1844) and many school-books and stand- ard works. In 1837 Dennis and James Sadlier began to issue Butler's "Lives of the Saints" and an edition of the Bible in monthly parts, and thus commenced what later developed into one of the largest book concerns in the United States. The list of their pub- lications is as varied as it is lengthy, and remark- able for the time was their series of "Metropolitan" school books. Patrick O'Shea, who had been associ- ated with the Dunigan concern, began for himself in 1854 and, until his death, in 1906, was a very indus- trious producer of Catholic books, his publications including, besides a great number of school books, many editions of valuable works, such as Darras' "History of the Church", Digby's "Mores", Brown- son's "American Republic", Lingard's "History of England", Wiseman's and Lacordaire's works. Ben- ziger Brothers, in 18.53, opened the branch of their German house that developed into the great concern, covering all branches of the trade. Father Isaac T. Hecker, C.S.P., as part of his dream for the evan- geUzation of his non-Catholic fellow-countrymen, founded, in 1866, the Catholic Publication Society. Into this enterprise his brother, George V. Hecker, also a convert, unselfishly put thousands of dollars. Its manager w;is Lawrence Kehoe, a man well versed in all the best ideals of the trade, who sent out its many books, bound and printed in a lavishness of style not attempted before.

Charities. — New York gave early evidence of the characteristic of heroic charity. In a letter written by Father Kohlmann, 21 March, 1809, he mentions "applications made at all houses to raise a subscrip- tion for the relief of the poor by which means $3000 have been collected to be p.aid constantly each year". New York then had only one church for its 16,000 Catholics. An orphan asyhnn was opened in 1817 in a small wooden house at Mott and Prince Streets, the "New York Catholic Benevolent Society", for its support and management, was incorporated the same


year by the Legislature — the first Catholic Society so legalized in the state — and Mother Seton sent three of her Sisters of Charity from Eiiuiiitsburg to take care of the children. This lusylum was moved in 1851 to the block adjoining the Cathe<lral in Fifth Avenue and remained there until this jiroperty was sold and the institution located in Westchester County, in 1901. A Union Emigrant Society, to aid immigrants, the precursor of the Irish l'".migrant Society and the Emigrant Industrial Savings Hank (see EMKiRANT Aid Societies) wius organized in 1829. St. Patrick's, the first New York Conference of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, was afliliated to the Paris Council in 1849, and in the steady increase of the organization throughout the diocese opened a new field for Catho- lic charity. The sturdy fight that had to be made against the raids on poor and neglected Catholic chil- dren in the public institutions was mainly through its members, and out of their efforts, in great measure, also grew the great Catholic Protectory, the Mission of the Immaculate Virgin, the Foundling Asylum, and the more recent Fresh Air and Convalescent Homes, Day Nurseries, and other incidental details of modern philanthropy.

V. Statistics. — The following religious communi- ties now have foundations in the diocese (1910): Men. — Augustinians, Augustinians of the Assumption, Fathers of the Blessed Sacrament, Benedictines, Ca- puchins, Carmelites, Dominicans, Franciscans, Jes- uits, Fathers of Mercy, Fathers of the Pious Society of Missions, Missionaries of St. Charles, Missionary Society of St. Paul the Apostle, Redemptorists, Salc- sian Fathers, Brothers of Mary, Christian Brothers, Marist Brothers, Brothers of the Christian Schools, Missionaries of La Salette. Women. — Sisters of St. Agnes, Little Sisters of the Assumption, Sisters of St. Benedict, Sisters of Bon Secours, Sisters of Charity, Sisters of Christian Charity, Sisters of the Divine Compassion, Sisters of Divine Providence, Sisters of St. Dominie, Sisters of the Order of St. Dominic, Felician Sisters, Missionary Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis, Sisters of the Poor of St. Francis, Sisters of St. Francis, Franciscan Missionaries of Mary, Sisters of the Good Shepherd, Helpers of the Holy Souls, Sisters of the Holy Child Jesus, Marianite Sisters of Holy Cross, Sisters of the Holy Cross, Sisters of Jesus Mary, Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Mary, Sisters of Mercy, Sisters of Miseri- corde. School Sisters of Notre Dame, Sisters of the Congregation of Notre Dame, Little Sisters of the Poor, Sisters of the Atonement, Reparatrice Nuns, Religious of the Cenacle, Presentation Nuns, Religious of the Sacred Heart, Religious of the Visitation, Mis- sionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart, LTrsuline Sisters, Missionary Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate Con- ception, Mission Helpers of the Sacred Heart.

The progress of the diocese is shown by the records kept of the gradual growth of population which made a great metropolis out of the small provincial city. The notable increase begins with the immigration during the canal and railroad-building period, after 1825, the exodus from Ireland following the famine year of 1847, and the German flight after the Revolu- tionary disturbances of 1848. In 1826 in New York City there were but three churches and 30,000 Cath- ohcs; and in the whole diocese (including New Jersey) only eight churches, eighteen priests, and 150,000 Catholics. The diocesan figures for 1850 are recorded as follows: churches, 57; chapels, 5; stations, 50; priests, 99; seminary, 1, with 34 students; academies, 9; hospital, 1; charitable institutions, 15; Catholic population, 200,000. In 1875 the increase is indicated by these figures: churches, 139; chapels, 35; priests, 300; ecclesiastical students in seminary, 71; colleges, 3; academies, 22; select schools, 18; hospitals, 4; charitable institutions, 23; religious communities of men, 17, of women, 22; Catholic population, 600,000.