- Day, Dorothy
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born Nov. 8, 1897, New York, N.Y., U.S.died Nov. 29, 1980, New York CityU.S. journalist and social reformer.While a scholarship student at the University of Illinois (1914–16), she read widely among socialist authors and soon joined the Socialist Party. In 1916 she returned to New York to work for the radical journals The Call and The Masses. With the birth of her daughter (1927), she broke her ties with radicalism and converted to Roman Catholicism. After writing for the liberal Catholic journal Commonweal, in 1933 she and Peter Maurin (1877–1949) cofounded The Catholic Worker, which expressed her view of "personalism." She sought to aid the poor by establishing urban "hospitality houses" as part of the Catholic Worker movement. After Maurin's death, she continued to publish the paper and manage the hospitality houses. Although her outspoken pacifist views were criticized by Catholic conservatives, she influenced Catholic liberals such as Thomas Merton and Daniel and Philip Berrigan.
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▪ American journalistborn Nov. 8, 1897, New York, N.Y., U.S.died Nov. 29, 1980, New York CityAmerican journalist and reformer, cofounder of the Catholic Worker newspaper, and an important lay leader in its associated activist movement.While a student at the University of Illinois on a scholarship (1914–16), Day read widely among socialist (socialism) authors and soon joined the Socialist Party. In 1916 she returned to New York City and joined the staff of the Call, a socialist newspaper; she also became a member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). In 1917 she moved to the staff of the Masses, where she remained until the magazine was suppressed by the government a few months later. After a brief period on the successor journal, the Liberator, Day worked as a nurse in Brooklyn (1918–19). For several years thereafter she continued in journalism in Chicago and in New Orleans, Louisiana. In 1927, following years of doubt and indecision, she joined the Roman Catholic (Roman Catholicism) Church, an act that for some time estranged her from her earlier radical associates.In 1932 Day met Peter Maurin, a French-born Catholic who had developed a program of social reconstruction, which he initially called “the green revolution,” based on communal farming and the establishment of houses of hospitality for the urban poor. The program, now called the Catholic Worker movement, aimed to unite workers and intellectuals in joint activities ranging from farming to educational discussions. In 1933 Day and Maurin founded the Catholic Worker, a monthly newspaper, to carry the idea to a wider audience. Within three years the paper's circulation had grown to 150,000, and the original St. Joseph's House of Hospitality in New York City had served as the pattern for similar houses in a number of other cities.The Catholic Worker movement that Day inspired took radical positions on many issues as it grew, and Day, a professed anarchist (anarchism), became widely regarded as one of the great Catholic lay leaders of the 20th century. During World War II the Catholic Worker was an organ for pacifism and supported Catholic conscientious objectors. Day protested the Vietnam War and was arrested in 1973 while demonstrating in California in support of Cesar Chavez (Chavez, Cesar) and the United Farm Workers (United Farm Workers of America). Day died at the House of Hospitality on the Lower East Side of New York City.Her autobiography, The Long Loneliness, was published in 1952. In the late 1990s steps were taken with the Vatican to begin the canonization process for Day; the Vatican granted the Archdiocese of New York permission to open her cause in March 2000.Additional ReadingBiographies include William D. Miller, Dorothy Day (1982); and Robert Coles, Dorothy Day: A Radical Devotion (1987). Day's work is analyzed in Nancy L. Roberts, Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker (1984); June O'Connor, The Moral Vision of Dorothy Day (1991); and Brigid O'Shea Merriman, Searching for Christ: The Spirituality of Dorothy Day (1994). An edition of her diaries, The Duty of Delight: The Diaries of Dorothy Day, ed. by Robert Ellsberg, was published in 2008.* * *
Universalium. 2010.
