American Saint: The Life of Elizabeth Seton
Barthel (A Death in Canaan, 1976) provides a fascinating biography of Elizabeth Ann Seton,  the first American saint. As founder of both the first order of active American nuns (the Sisters of Charity) and the first Catholic school in America, her spiritual and educational legacy is immeasurable. Born into a prominent family in Revolutionary-era New York, she scandalized genteel society by converting to Catholicism after the death of her husband. Though a widow with five children, she eschewed societal conventions on religious, social, and gender levels, serving as a model to and a standard for devout women determined to make inroads into the male-dominated hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church, both then and now. Though her life was brief (1774–1821), her impact was enormous, reverberating through generations of American nuns determined to have a voice and the Catholic-school students they educated and influenced. --Margaret Flanagan