Dorothy day biography for kids

American religious and social activist (1897–1980)

For the American plant physiologist, see Dorothy Day (plant physiologist).

Not to be confused with Doris Day.

Dorothy Day, OblSB (November 8, 1897 – November 29, 1980) was an American journalist, social activist and anarchist who, after a bohemian youth, became a Catholic without abandoning her social activism. She was perhaps the best-known political radical among American Catholics.

Day's conversion is described in her 1952 autobiography, The Long Loneliness. Day was also an active journalist, and described her social activism in her writings. In 1917 she was imprisoned as a member of suffragist Alice Paul's nonviolent Silent Sentinels. In the 1930s, Day worked closely with fellow activist Peter Maurin to establish the Catholic Worker Movement, a pacifist movement that combines direct aid for the poor and homeless with nonviolent direct action on their behalf. She practiced civil disobedience, which led to additional arrests in 1955, 1957, and in 1973 at age 75.

As part of the Catholic Worker Movement, Day co-founded the Catholic Worker newspaper in 1933, and served as its editor from 1933 until her death in 1980. In this newspaper, Day advocated the Catholic economic theory of distributism, which she considered a third way between capitalism and socialism.Pope Benedict XVI used her conversion story as an example of how to "journey towards faith… in a secularized environment." In an address before the United States Congress, Pope Francis included her in a l

At first, Day struggled to find her place as a Catholic. While covering the 1932 Hunger March in Washington, D.C., at age 35, she lamented the absence of the Church — which, she felt, should have been at the forefront of the march. At the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, she wrote later, “I offered up a special prayer, a prayer which came with tears and anguish, that some way would open up for me to use what talents I possessed for my fellow workers, for the poor.” The next day, she met Peter Maurin, a French immigrant and former De La Salle Christian Brother. Maurin introduced her to the Church’s social teaching and to his own vision for “a new society within the shell of the old.”

On May 1, 1933, during the depths of the Great Depression, Maurin and Day launched the Catholic Worker newspaper. Within only a few years, the paper’s circulation soared and dozens of Catholic Worker houses sprang up across the country. The movement’s members embraced a simple lifestyle (“voluntary poverty”) and cared for poor and homeless people.

The Catholic Worker Movement was also shaped by Day’s unwavering commitment to pacifism. She wrote scathingly about the devastation wrought by atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and protested against nuclear weapons. She joined in nonviolent actions with the civil rights movement, the anti-Vietnam War movement and the United Farm Workers. All the while, over the following decades, she wrote, traveled, gave talks, and encouraged people to practice the Works of Mercy.

Day’s pilgrimage ended on November 29, 1980 at Maryhouse, a Catholic Worker house for unhoused women in New York City. After her death, historian David O’Brien called her “the most important, interesting, and influential figure in the history of American Catholicism.”

(1897-1980)

Who Was Dorothy Day?

Intrigued by the Catholic faith for years, Dorothy Day converted in 1927. In 1933, she co-founded The Catholic Worker, a newspaper promoting Catholic teachings that became very successful and spawned the Catholic Worker Movement, which tackled issues of social justice. Day also helped establish special homes to help those in need. Day was a radical during her time, working for such social causes as pacifism and women's suffrage.

Early Life

Dorothy Day was born on November 8, 1897, in New York City. She was the third of five children born to her parents, Grace and John, who worked as a journalist. The family moved to California for his job when Dorothy was 6 years old. They later lived in Chicago.

A bright student, Day was accepted to the University of Illinois. She was enrolled there from 1914 to 1916, but she abandoned her studies to move to New York City. There, Day became involved with a literary and liberal crowd in the city's Greenwich Village neighborhood. Playwright Eugene O'Neill was one of her friends at the time. Day worked as a journalist, writing for several socialist and progressive publications in the 1910s and '20s. She interviewed a number of interesting public figures of the day, including Leon Trotsky.

Journalist and Activist

Socially and politically active, Day was arrested several times for her involvement in protests. She even went on a hunger strike after being jailed for protesting in front of the White House in 1917 as part of an effort to secure the right to vote for women.

In her personal life, Day experienced some turmoil. She was involved with writer Lionel Moise for a time. After Day became pregnant, she gave in to Moise's insistence that she have abortion, but the relationship still didn't last. Day then married a literary promoter named Berkeley Tobey, with whom she toured Europe, but they separated within a year.

Using her experiences as a progressive activist and an art

“Dorothy Day remains the conscience of American Catholicism… with a dual passion for social justice and intimacy with God.” --The Atlantic

Even before her death in 1980 at the age of 83, Dorothy Day was already being considered a future saint in the Catholic Church. This former communist and anarchist, social activist and Church critic may soon join the company of those she so admired - St. Francis of Assisi and St. Teresa of Avila. Day often bristled at those who called her a living saint - believing it was a way to easily dismiss her as a simple idealist. But in Dorothy Day, the poor, the hungry, the homeless and all those clinging to the margins of life could not have a more devoted companion.

The story of Dorothy Day reflects all her complexities, richness and contradictions. As a child she survived the great San Francisco earthquake. As a young adult in Chicago she fell in love, had an abortion, married, divorced and twice attempted suicide. She moved to New York City, rejected religion and had a child out of wedlock. In Greenwich Village she shared stories and drank whiskey with her writer friend, Eugene O’Neill. And through it all she continued to develop her skills as a writer and journalist.

But in 1932 Day befriended Peter Maurin who introduced her to Catholic social teaching and her life took a dramatic turn. Soon after, the two began the Catholic Worker movement. It launched first as a newspaper with an initial run of 2,500. Within a few years - despite the Great Depression - circulation grew to 100,000. Later, Catholic Worker houses of hospitality opened, offering food and shelter for anyone in need. Today there are more than 220 Catholic Worker houses in the United States and abroad.

In her autobiography Day describes serving the poor on a daily basis as anything but romantic. She shares how difficult it is to love people who accept charity but offer no expression of gratitude. How some can be disruptive and foul tempered. Day was a small,