Charity Speaks
“Charity Speaks, spearheaded by the Sisters of Charity Federation archivists, is a collaborative, international, and inter-congregational project to promote the oral history legacy of Catholic sisters in the Vincentian-Setonian tradition through the establishment of a public, digital collections database.
Oral history, a powerful tool for storytelling and microhistory, explores the concept of shared memory and individual experience. By sharing the sisters’ stories, each of the Sisters of Charity Federation member congregations will have an opportunity to highlight their respective history while also uniting the charism of charity into a single voice. Utilizing historic audio and written transcripts, the federation archivists will build an interactive and searchable website for use by historians, the general public, and members of women religious communities.
Charity Speaks is a unique endeavor for women religious archives and, equally, exceptional in the realm of Catholic scholarship. We will begin with 10 entries from each participating community and hope to eventually expand to photographs, documents, and much more. The project will not be limited by time or scope, but can grow into the future to build a deeper, lasting legacy of the history of charity.”
–Casey Bowser, archivist, Sisters of Charity of Seton Hill
