Groundbreaking archive in Ohio aims to preserve the history of U.S. women religious

CNA Staff, May 1, 2025 / 06:00 am

A group of religious sisters in Cleveland is launching a multimillion-dollar archive center that will help collect, preserve, and share the stories of women religious in the United States. 

Sister Susan Durkin, OSU, told CNA that the Women Religious Archives Collaborative will ensure the preservation of the “tremendous stories of how sisters in the United States overcame insurmountable obstacles to serve the people in front of them.”

Durkin said that when she was serving as the president of the Ursuline Sisters of Cleveland, the congregation undertook a project to downsize its motherhouse. 

“In our downsizing we had to make a decision about what to do with our archives,” she said, describing the storage option in the reduced space as “not a long-term strategy.” 

Leaders in the Cleveland Diocese expressed interest in a possible archive project. The Ursuline congregation, meanwhile, was working with an archival consultant on its own collection. 

Durkin said the archivist told them: “Look, this project is bigger than the Diocese of Cleveland. You might want to reach out further.” 

The sisters began inquiring in multiple states. The Sisters of Charity Foundation of Cleveland, meanwhile, provided seed money to help launch the project. After undertaking sustainability modeling, the project became incorporated in 2022. 

“We’re incorporated in the state of Ohio and we’re in the Catholic directory,” Durkin said. “We have a board, a board committee, bylaws, codes, and regulations. We’re an official nonprofit. We’re looking to build this heritage center here in Cleveland.”

‘Really a unique and inspirational story’

The project has already amassed dozens of collections from around the country, Durkin said. 

“Right now we have 41 collections and continue to be in conversation with other congregations,” she said. “It grew from something that was regional to something bigger.”

The collections will include historical information about why a religious community served in a certain area and why it expanded to other places, Durkin said. “There will be individual sister stories, ministry stories, and then the sisters’ influence in the arts and music.” 

One particular area of focus, she said, will be in how many congregations, post-Vatican II, experienced a shift in ministry from more institutional systems like medical care and education to broader endeavors. 

“There are so many tremendous stories of how sisters overcame insurmountable obstacles to serve the people in front of them,” she said. “It’s not just that we’re preserving history. It’s about animating those stories. The sisters aren’t going away, and we need to manage these collections in a way that becomes useful and visible.”

The centerpiece of the project is a major facility in the Central neighborhood of Cleveland, which Durkin noted is “one of the poorest per capita in the U.S.” The sisters are aiming to have the archival center revitalize the neighborhood.

“We’re making an investment there,” Durkin said, calling the effort “not gentrification, but a renaissance.”

The archival project has launched a major capital campaign to that end with the goal of raising $24 million. The building itself will cost $22 million and the sisters hope to cover operational costs for the first year. 

The facility will include research facilities for archivists and other historians as well as an exhibit space with permanent and rotating exhibits, along with multipurpose rooms and other accommodations.

Ultimately, Durkin said, the goal of the project is to ensure that people will have access to the history and the stories of women religious in the United States, offering “examples for up-and-coming generations to show how our faith motivates us and how it’s important to us.”

“I think that resilience and that determination, and just total reliance on the providence of God, is really a unique and inspirational story,” she said. “And we need to continue to tell that.”

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