Catherine Spalding, known as Mother Spalding, (December 23, 1793 – March 20, 1858) was an American educator who was a co-founder and longtime mother superior of the

Sisters of Charity of Nazareth The Congregation of the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth (SCN) is a Roman Catholic order of nuns. It was founded in 1812 near Bardstown, Kentucky, when three young women responded to Bishop John Baptist Mary David's call for assistance in ministe ...

. She pioneered education, health services and social services for girls and orphans in Louisville and other Kentucky cities. On January 6, 2003, the ''

Louisville Courier-Journal The ''Courier Journal'', also known as the ''Louisville Courier Journal'' (and informally ''The C-J'' or ''The Courier''), and called ''The Courier-Journal'' between November 8, 1868, and October 29, 2017, is the highest circulation newspape ...

'' named Spalding as the only woman among sixteen "most influential people in

Louisville Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border. ...

/ Jefferson County history."Doyle SCN, Mary Ellen. "Catherine Spalding, SCN (1793-1858)", National Women's History Museum
/ref>

Early life

Catherine Spalding was born on December 23, 1793, in

Pomfret Pomfrets are perciform fishes belonging to the family Bramidae. The family currently includes 20 species across seven genera. Several species are important food sources for humans, especially ''Brama brama'' in South Asia. The earlier form of t ...

Charles County, Maryland Charles County is a county in Southern Maryland. As of the 2020 census, the population was 166,617. The county seat is La Plata. The county was named for Charles Calvert (1637–1715), third Baron Baltimore. Charles County is part of the Wash ...

. At age three, her family moved to

Nelson County, Kentucky Nelson County is a county located in the U.S. state of Kentucky. As of the 2020 census, the population was 48,065. Its county seat is Bardstown. Nelson County comprises the Bardstown, KY Micropolitan Statistical Area, which is also included ...

. Her mother died the next year and her father later deserted the children. An uncle and aunt, Thomas and Elizabeth Spalding Elder, raised the five Spalding children with their own ten children. At age 16, Catherine Spalding moved in with her cousins, Richard and Clementina Elder Clark, living there for three years. According to Spalding, the Elders and Clarks provided her with a stable home life, a religious faith, the skills for pioneer homemaking and health care, and the basics of education. She also developed a passion to care for other children orphaned by death or desertion,

Sisters of Charity of Nazareth

After the end of the

American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revolut ...

in 1783, over 1,000 Catholic families moved to Kentucky from Maryland. Bishop Benedict Flaget of Bardstown, Kentucky and Father John Baptist David realized that these families needed schools and teachers for their children. Both members of the

Sulpician Order The Society of Priests of Saint-Sulpice (french: Compagnie des Prêtres de Saint-Sulpice), abbreviated PSS also known as the Sulpicians is a society of apostolic life of Pontifical Right for men, named after the Church of Saint-Sulpice, Paris ...

, the two clerics wanted to establish a school in Kentucky that was similar to a school established by

Elizabeth Seton Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton (August 28, 1774 – January 4, 1821) was a Catholic religious sister in the United States and an educator, known as a founder of the country's parochial school system. After her death, she became the first person bo ...

Emmitsburg, Maryland Emmitsburg is a town in Frederick County, Maryland, United States, south of the Mason-Dixon line separating Maryland from Pennsylvania. Founded in 1785, Emmitsburg is the home of Mount St. Mary's University. The town has two Catholic pilgrima ...

.Shaughnessy SCN, Mary Angela. "Catherine Spalding: co-foundress of the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth", ''Catholic Education: A Journal of Inquiry and Practice'', Vol. 9, No. 3, March 2006, pp.334-345
In 1812, Davis sought volunteers to begin a women's religious order in Kentucky to serve Catholic children. It was called the

(SCN). In January 1813, the 19-year-old Spalding, accompanied by her uncle, arrived at St. Thomas Seminary farm in

to join SCN with Teresa Carrico and Elizabeth Wells. David gave the women the rule of

Vincent de Paul Vincent de Paul, CM (24 April 1581 – 27 September 1660), commonly known as Saint Vincent de Paul, was a Occitan French Catholic priest who dedicated himself to serving the poor. In 1622 Vincent was appointed a chaplain to the galleys. Afte ...

as followed in Emmitsburg. SCN at St. Thomas initially performed farm work, domestic work for the priests and seminarians, and visited the sick. While Carrico had very little education and no apparent aptitude for teaching, her farming, cooking, and housekeeping skills enabled the community to thrive. Over time, three more women joined SCN and Spalding was elected as its mother superior.

Ministry

Nazareth Academy

In 1814, Spalding helped establish a girls school on St. Thomas Farm. Its students included paying and non-paying boarders, along with resident orphans.Freund CM, John. "Women's History – Catherine Spalding, Educational Pioneer", ''Vincentian Family News'', March 6, 2014
/ref> The St. Thomas community grew and in 1822 moved to a larger property in

Nazareth, Kentucky Nazareth is an unincorporated community and a historic site in Nelson County, Kentucky, United States, located about three miles north of Bardstown. The zipcode is: 40048. History In 1822, Nazareth became the new home of the Sisters of Charity o ...

. The girls school became known as Nazareth Academy. It soon developed a reputation as one of the best-known schools for young women in the region outside of

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans
Merriam-Webster. ; french: La Nouvelle-Orléans , es, Nuev ...

. Nazareth offered instruction in the usual "ladies' accomplishments" along with a curriculum of arts and sciences.

Presentation Academy

By 1828, SCN had begun caring for homeless elderly clients. In 1831, Spalding and three other SCN members opened

Presentation Academy Presentation Academy, a college-preparatory high school for young women, is located in Downtown Louisville, Kentucky, United States, just north of Old Louisville in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Louisville. Founded in 1831 by Mother Cathe ...

in the basement of St. Louis Church in Louisville. The school served children of all income levels. Presentation Academy later moved from the basement into several houses on Fifth Street. It is today the oldest school in Louisville. In 1829, when Louisville experienced a

cholera epidemic Seven cholera pandemics have occurred in the past 200 years, with the first pandemic originating in India in 1817. The seventh cholera pandemic is officially a current pandemic and has been ongoing since 1961, according to a World Health Organizat ...

, SCN started nursing poor victims of the disease.

St. Vincent Orphanage

To care for abandoned immigrant children, Spalding would pick them up on arrival at the Louisville

wharf A wharf, quay (, also ), staith, or staithe is a structure on the shore of a harbour or on the bank of a river or canal where ships may dock to load and unload cargo or passengers. Such a structure includes one or more berths (mooring locatio ...

and house them at the Sisters' house behind the church. Spalding later raised funding to build a separate house for 25 orphans. Within three years, Spalding was forced to purchase a larger building for the increased number of orphans. In 1832, this facility became known as St. Vincent Orphanage.Delehanty, Dolores. "Catherine Spalding: A legacy worth preserving", ''The Courier-Journal'', September 23, 2014
/ref> She later opened the St. Vincent Infirmary in part of the orphanage building. When not running her institutions, Spalding would return to St. Vincent Orphanage. With the rise in immigration from Ireland and Germany in the 1840s, the orphanage was seeing more children. As superior of the orphanage—"the only place on earth to which my heart clings"—she accepted hundreds of children, directed Sisters and lay assistants, collaborated with professional men and their wives. Spalding was often seen on the streets in Louisville, visiting businesses to solicit donations or attending to the poor in their homes. It was said that "Every orphan in the city claims you as their mother."

Mother superior

Spalding was elected to several six-year terms as

mother superior An abbess (Latin: ''abbatissa''), also known as a mother superior, is the female superior of a community of Catholic nuns in an abbey. Description In the Catholic Church (both the Latin Church and Eastern Catholic), Eastern Orthodox, Coptic ...

by the members of SCN. Other Sisters collaborated with her council, and numerous clergy and lay persons worked to establish the three main ministries that Kentuckians lacked. From 1838 on, Spalding served two more terms in leadership. When Bishop Flaget attempted to merge SCN in Kentucky with the Sisters of Charity in

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...

, she successfully opposed it. The other Sisters did not want the merger and Spalding believed that a distant administrator in Maryland would hinder their work in Kentucky. In 1842, Spalding sent several Sisters to establish institutions in the Diocese of Nashville. In 1843, Spalding opened the first free school in Louisville. Spalding eventually moved the St. Joseph Infirmary into its own building so that the St. Vincent orphanage could expand. Between 1854 and 1855, she directed construction of the church and new academy at Nazareth. In 1858, Spalding contracted

pneumonia Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severity ...

while working with the sick. She died on March 20, 1858.

Legacy

SCN is now an international

religious order A religious order is a lineage of communities and organizations of people who live in some way set apart from society in accordance with their specific religious devotion, usually characterized by the principles of its founder's religious practi ...

that cares for the sick, poor, and orphaned; and advocates for

social justice Social justice is justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society. In Western and Asian cultures, the concept of social justice has often referred to the process of ensuring that individuals fu ...

in five nations in North America, Asia, and Africa. Spalding has been called the founder of social work in Kentucky. She founded Nazareth Academy (1814), St. Vincent's Academy (1820), St. Catherine's Academy in

Lexington, Kentucky Lexington is a city in Kentucky, United States that is the county seat of Fayette County, Kentucky, Fayette County. By population, it is the List of cities in Kentucky, second-largest city in Kentucky and List of United States cities by popul ...

(1823), Presentation Academy (1831), St. Vincent's Orphan Asylum (1832), St. Joseph's Hospital (1836), and St. Francis' School at

Owensboro, Kentucky Owensboro is a home rule-class city in and the county seat of Daviess County, Kentucky, United States. It is the fourth-largest city in the state by population. Owensboro is located on U.S. Route 60 and Interstate 165 about southwest of Lou ...

(1850).

Spalding University Spalding University is a private Catholic university in Louisville, Kentucky. It is affiliated with the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth. History Spalding University traces its origins to Nazareth Academy, one of the oldest educational instituti ...

in Louisville is named after Spalding. The Spalding Family Scholarship was established in 1967 by Hughes Spalding and is awarded annually to a student with financial need.Spalding University
In 2015, a statue of Spalding was unveiled in Louisville, the first statue of a historic woman in public space in the city. It is located at the parish office on South Fifth Street downtown.