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Cordelia Frances Biddle
Saint Katharine
The Life of Katharine Drexel
The First Complete Biography of the Only United States Citizen to be Canonized, a
Gilded-Age Woman Who Devoted Her Life and Fortune to the American Dispossed
When Katharine Drexel was born in 1858, her grandfather, financier
Francis Martin Drexel, had a fortune so vast he was able to provide a
loan of sixty-million dollars to the Union’s cause. Her uncle and mentor,
Anthony, established Drexel University to provide instruction to the working-class regardless of race, religion, or gender. Her stepmother was
Emma Bouvier whose brother, John, became the great-grandfather of
Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis. Katharine Drexel’s family were
American royalty. As a Philadelphia socialite, “Kitty,” as she was often
called, adored formal balls and teas, rowing regattas, and sailing races.
She was beautiful, intelligent, and high-spirited. But when her stepmother died in 1883, and her father two years later, a sense of desolation
nearly overwhelmed her. She was twenty-seven and in possession of a
staggering inheritance. Approached for aid by the Catholic Indian
Missions, she horrified her family by giving generously of money and
time. It was during this period of acute self-examination that she journeyed to Rome for a private audience with Pope Leo XIII. With characteristic energy and fervor, she detailed the plight of the Native Americans,
and begged for additional missionaries to serve them. His reply astonished her. “Why not, my child, yourself become a missionary?”
In Saint Katharine: The Life of Katharine Drexel, Cordelia Frances
Biddle recounts the extraordinary story of a gilded age luminary who
became a selfless worker for the welfare and rights of America’s poorest
persons. After years of supporting efforts on behalf of African Americans
and American Indians, Katharine finally decided to follow her demanding
inner voice and take holy orders. The daring act made headline news.
Naturally, the church hierarchy was grateful to share in Katharine’s
wealth, but, like her father and grandfather, she was a shrewd businessperson. She refused to relinquish financial autonomy. Additionally,
she insisted on establishing her own order, the Sisters of the Blessed
Sacrament. Until her death in 1955, she devoted herself and her inheritance to establishing much needed schools in the South and Southwest,
despite threats from the Ku Klux Klan and others. Pragmatic, sometimes
willful, ardent and a charismatic leader, Katharine Drexel was an indefatigable champion of justice and parity. When illness incapacitated her in
later years, divine radiance was said to emanate from her, a radiance
that led to her canonization on October 1, 2000, the United States’s
only Catholic saint.
Price: $26.00
Pages: 280 Trim: 6 x 9
Illus: 20 b/w
Format: Jacketed Hardback
ISBN: 978-1-59416-211-4
Biography
World Rights
October 2014
CORDELIA FRANCES BIDDLE teaches creative writing at Drexel
University’s Pennoni Honors College and received the college’s
Outstanding Teaching Award in 2012. A member of the Authors Guild, her
works include, Beneath the Wind, Without Fear, Deception’s Daughter,
and The Conjurer. She has contributed to Town and Country,
Hemispheres and W, and won the 1997 SATW Lowell Thomas travelwriting award for “Three Perfect Days in Philadelphia.” She is a descendent of Francis Martin Drexel, grandfather of Saint Katharine Drexel.
WESTHOLME PUBLISHING
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Fall 2014
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1 . 800 . 621 . 2736
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