Education for Girls in the House of the Good Shepherd 1940 to 1980

Historically, convent education was used to impart a set of moral values that would lead to a productive life, both spiritually and socially. The foundress of the Good Shepherd Sisters, Saint Mary Euphrasia started a convent-based social service institution for vulnerable women and girls in Angers, France that became a postsecondary education system for girls selectively admitted by families, clergy, and the juvenile court system in the US. Convent education is underresearched in the history of women's education and feminism in general. This study explores forty years of this unique form of secular education in a religious environment for girls twenty years after it all but vanished from our landscape. Conversion to Catholicism was not the focus. This study utilizes archival research, personal communications, oral histories, memoirs, and secondary sources to explore the experiences in the Good Shepherd schools for girls in the mid twentieth century US. The schools featured unconditional love, a structured environment, occupational training, and academic instruction that played a role in shaping girls identities as self-reliant women.