Masterless Mistresses: The New Orleans Ursulines and the Development of a New World Society, 1727-1834

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 312 pages
• Published by: The University of North Carolina Press April 30, 2007
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0807858226
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0807858226
• Book Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Weighs: 15.2 ounces

Product Review
A superb book on a neglected topic in early American history.
-Susan Juster, University of Michigan

Clark deepens our understanding of life in early New Orleans through this absorbing study of the Ursuline convent.
-Daniel H. Usner Jr., Vanderbilt University

Product Description
During French colonial rule in Louisiana, nuns from the French Company of Saint Ursula came to New Orleans, where they educated women and girls of European, Indian, and African descent, enslaved and free, in literacy, numeracy, and the Catholic faith. Although religious women had gained acceptance and authority in seventeenth-century France, the New World was less welcoming. Emily Clark explores the transformations required of the Ursulines as their distinctive female piety collided with slave society, Spanish colonial rule, and Protestant hostility.