In the summer of 2023, the last of the Sisters of the Visitation of the Holy Mary in Philadelphia left their monastery. Thankfully, the Sisters had the foresight to preserve their archival records and send them on to Washington, D.C., to be cared for at Georgetown Visitation Monastery – the first site of the Order of the Visitation in North America, founded in 1799.
The 94 archival boxes document the remarkable history of a religious community that began in 1898, when six Sisters from the Visitation Monastery in Mobile, Alabama set out to found a monastery and school in the Archdiocese of Mexico – initially in Tepexpan and then, due to safety concerns amidst a political coup, in Mexico City. The Visitation Sisters persisted and found some success there until 1926, when political and religious strife forced them to flee the country and return to the Visitation monastery in Mobile – though for most of the Sisters, this would be their first time in the U.S. The community then founded a new monastery in Philadelphia, which remained active for almost 100 years.
Among the archival documents sent to Georgetown is an unassuming scrapbook titled “Glimpses of Our Days in Mexico and the U.S.A,” which tells the story of the Sisters’ initial journey from the U.S. to Mexico; of the Community’s isolation, then growth in a tumultuous political climate; of dangers including “bandit attacks” and persecution under President Carranzo; and of the difficult first years in Philadelphia, during which 12 Mexican Sisters died, a tragedy the community attributed to the “change from sunny Mexico to the noisy slum district of a large industrial city.”
The scrapbook also contains a wealth of photos: images of the rustic monastery in Tepexpan; a more elaborate academy, monastery, and garden in Coyoacan; early Superiors in Mexico City. The most intriguing photograph shows over forty women standing in front of a train, captioned, “Our loved Community disguised in secular clothes arriving in the United States of America, March 8, 1926.”
This scrapbook offers rare insight into the lives of cloistered Sisters whose lifestyle revolved around their removal from the broader world. Yet, the item also shows that their lives were still profoundly shaped by the world outside them, both its dangers and its opportunities. Though the monastery in Philadelphia is now closed, the Sisters’ faith and perseverance persist in their historical records.
**The Philadelphia Visitation Monastery Archives are being processed. While the Visitation Archives do not have publicly available finding aids, inquiries may be sent to”
Cassandra Berman
Archivist at Georgetown Visitation Monastery
cassandra.berman@visi.org
Amanda Gesiorski
Archivist at St. Louis Visitation Monastery and Academy
agesiorski@vizstl.org
