Ursuline Convent Riots - Background

Background

In 1820, the Most Reverend Jean-Louis Lefebvre de Cheverus, bishop of the newly created diocese of Boston, granted permission for the establishment of a convent of Ursuline teaching nuns in a building next to the cathedral. A school for girls was set up in the convent, in which approximately 100 students were enrolled.

By 1827, the school and convent had outgrown the building. In July of that year, the community moved to a larger building on Ploughed Hill (later called Convent Hill or Mount Benedict), in Charlestown. The school began to enroll primarily the daughters of the Protestant upper classes of Boston; by 1834 there were forty-seven students, only six of whom were Catholic. According to Jenny Franchot, the author of a history of the riots, the presence of a community of Catholic religious in their midst reminded Protestant Bostonians of the increasing influx of Irish Catholics, who were taking over the labor market. The existence of the Ursuline convent thus emphasized both the economic discomfort felt by non-Catholics in general, and the religious discomfort felt by conservative Protestants such as the Reverend Lyman Beecher. In late July and early August 1834, this unease came to a head and fermented into a riot.