An Account of the Conflagration of the Ursuline Convent | 1834

The lives of nuns throughout history is one of my special interests. Imagine my surprise to learn there had been a convent in the early 19th century close to where my family settled nearly a century later! When I was out picking one day, I found a copy of “Six Months in a Convent,” an 1836 tell-all book by a novitiate who fled the Mount Benedict Ursuline convent in Somerville, MA (then still part of Charlestown). She described the convent as essentially a prison for young girls, who were forced to adhere to the rules set by the nuns with deprivation and cruel punishments. Having been to Catholic school for 12 years, I can fully believe all this. As a kid, I was constantly in the principal’s office for disobedience- even though most of the time I was just asking questions. A teacher at this same convent fled to the parents of one of her students around the same time but was persuaded by her family and the bishop to return just days later. These events contributed heavily to the growing anti-Catholic sentiments in Boston at the time. Catholicism was taking a foothold here largely due to the influx of Irish immigrants, who took low paying jobs and were marginalized, ridiculed, and reviled, as so many immigrants still are today. The rumors surrounding this Ursuline convent lead to its destruction: It was burned down by an angry Protestant mob in 1834. Although Six Months in a Convent and its copycats (like Awful Disclosures of the Hotel-Dieu Nunnery by Maria Monk) were published after the burning, folks speculated that clandestine circulation of the manuscripts emboldened the rioters to act. Thankfully no one in the convent was hurt. All that remained of the convent was some masonry that later went into the foundation of the Holy Cross church in Boston’s South End.

Published shortly after the burning but before Six Months in a Convent was released, this particular book is a pro-Catholic rebuttal against the violence committed against the Ursulines. It details the day to day lives of the students and teachers at Mount Benedict in an effort to refute sensationalized claims that the convent was a prison that tortured children, or kept anyone there against their free will. The book is vanishingly scarce, even though the burning of this convent is a key event in the history of Catholicism in America. I will be very happy to put it on my shelf next to my copies of Six Months in a Convent & Awful Disclosures if it doesn’t find a new home!

Green marbled cover boards with a leather spine. Condition is good overall with some age tanning to the pages and rubbing around the edges.