Katharine Drexel

Early philanthropy

Francis Drexel died in 1885, leaving a large amount of money to his daughters. At that point Drexel, supported by her sister Louise, decided to begin funding schools for Native Americans. That same year, Drexel donated money for the establishment of the St. Mary’s Indian Industrial School on the new Turtle Mountain Reservation in the Dakota Territory, providing an education to the Chippewa people. In 1886, she was granted an audience with Pope Leo XIII in Rome. During their meeting, she asked the pope to send more missionaries to the Western United States to minister to the Native Americans. In response, he asked her why she did not become a missionary herself.^[3][9]

Drexel visited O'Connor in Nebraska in 1887 and 1888; by then he was leading the new Diocese of Omaha. O'Connor took Drexel on a tour of several Indian reservations in the region so that she could see for herself the poverty and illiteracy of these people. Drexel founded the Kate Drexel Mission Boarding School at the Umatilla Reservation near Pendleton, Oregon, in 1887, educating the Umatilla, Walla Walla, and Cayuse peoples. The next year, she established the St. John's School for Osage Indian Boys in Blackburn, Oklahoma.^[10][11] Also in 1888, she financed the opening of the St. Joseph Indian Normal School in Rensselaer, Indiana.^[12]

Founding of Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament

In 1889, Drexel decided to follow Leo XIII's advice and become a missionary herself. She entered a convent of the Sisters of Mercy. In February 1891, she founded the Congregation of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for Indians and Colored People (SBS).^[3] While still supporting missions for Native Americans, Drexel started building institutions for African-Americans.^[9]

Many of the women who entered SBS were Irish Americans or Irish immigrants. Although Drexel was not Irish, she had grown up with many Irish servants and religious figures and had a high opinion of their work ethic and goodness. She sent many of them to classes at Drexel University and the University of Pennsylvania. She was vigilant in determining that recruits did not harbor racial prejudices.^[3]

Drexel only accepted White women into the SBS. In a 1991 article in Catholic American Studies, Raymond H. Schmandt theorized that Drexel did not want to compete with existing African-American religious orders for candidates, and she believed a racially integrated religious SBS would only amplify the existing animosity against both Catholics and African-Americans.^[3] Finally, there were Jim Crow laws in the American South that prohibited different races from living together.

Louise purchased Belmead Plantation, a vacant estate in Powhatan, Virginia, in 1895. Working with Drexel, they opened the St. Emma Industrial and Agricultural Institute for boys in 1895 and the St. Francis de Sales School for girls in 1899.^[13]

The Dominican Sisters of St. Catherine de' Ricci opened an orphanage in Havana, Cuba, in 1901 to care for Afro-Cuban children who had lost their parents due to the 1898 Spanish–American War. Despite the sisters' efforts, they received no donations from the Cuban government or private individuals for their project. However, Drexel gave them a donation to keep the orphanage solvent.^[14]

In 1907, Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini, the founder of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (MSC), stopped in Philadelphia to dine with Drexel. During the 19th century, Cabrini had established schools and hospitals throughout the United States for poor Italian immigrants. She had wanted to personally thank Drexel for her helping an MSC sister in Philadelphia. In a very amiable conversation, Drexel told Cabrini that the Vatican bureaucracy was stymieing her religious order on a legal matter. Believing in direct action, Cabrini told her to personally go to Rome and remain there until the Vatican resolved the problem. Drexel took her advice and succeeded in her mission.^[15]

In 1915, Archbishop James Blenk of the Archdiocese of New Orleans asked Drexel to come to New Orleans, Louisiana, to open a high school for African-American youth.^[9] She bought the former site of Southern University and opened Xavier High School. Two years later, she helped with the addition of a normal school for training teachers. Both schools became Xavier University of Louisiana.^[16]

During the late 1930s, Drexel suffered a severe heart attack that permanently curtailed most of her activities.^[17] Drexel died on March 3, 1955, at St. Elizabeth’s Convent in Bensalem Township, Pennsylvania.^[7] By that time, most of her fortune had been depleted.^[17]

Commentary on Drexel

Bishop Robert Barron said this about Drexel in 2008:

"Katharine’s natural sense of moderation and self-control became a supernaturalized temperance, and her ordinary sense of fairness became elevated justice, a desire to render to the other even beyond what is his due. Since all here below is passing, she must give all to the demands of the eternal. The great irony, of course, is that this insight came to her just after an enormous sum of money—that which could buy her all of the goods of the ephemeral world—fell under her control.^[24]

In 2025, Pope Leo XIV noted Drexel as an example of those who, during their lives,

"...discovered that the poorest are not only objects of our compassion, but teachers of the Gospel. It is not a question of 'bringing' God to them, but of encountering [God] among them."^[25]

Schools founded or funded by Drexel

• St. Mary's Indian Industrial School – Turtle Mountain Reservation, Belcourt, North Dakota (1885 to 1910)^[26]
• Kate Drexel Mission Boarding School – Umatilla Reservation, Pendleton, Oregon (1887 to 1937)^[27]
• St. John's School for Osage Indian Boys – Blackburn, Oklahoma (1888 to 1913).^[10][11]
• St. Joseph Indian Normal School – St. Joseph's College, Rensselaer, Indiana (1888 to 1896). See page 350 of cited source^[12]
• St. Emma Industrial and Agricultural Institute – Belmead Plantation, Powhatan, Virginia (later St. Emma Military Academy). Founded in 1895
• St. Benedict the Moor School – St. Augustine, Florida. Originally called St. Cecelia, founded in 1898^[28]
• St. Teresa’s Institute for Creek Indian Girls – Tulsa, Oklahoma. Founded in 1899^[29]
• St. Francis de Sales School – Belmead Plantation, founded in 1899^[13]
• St. Michael Indian School – St. Michaels, Arizona. Founded in 1902^[30]
• St. Peter Claver Catholic School – Macon, Georgia. Founded in 1903^[31]
• St. Mark the Evangelist School – Harlem, New York City. Founded in 1912, first school for African-American Catholic children in the city^[32]
• Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church and School – Atlanta, Georgia. Founded in 1912^[33]
• Xavier University of Louisiana – New Orleans. Founded in 1915^[34]
• Blessed Sacrament Catholic School – Beaumont, Texas. Founded in 1917^[35]
• St. Edward School – New Iberia, Louisiana. Founded in 1918^[36]
• St. Ignatius of Loyola School – Philadelphia. Founded in 1926, moved to Philadelphia in 1967^[37]
• Sacred Heart Catholic School – Port Arthur, Texas. Founded in 1927^[38]
• St. Vincent De Paul Catholic Church and School – Nashville, Tennessee. Founded in 1932^[39]

Awards

• Katharine Drexel Award in Catholic Philanthropy, Fadica Catholic Philanthropy Network – honors philanthropists who advocate for Catholic ministries.^[40]
• St. Katharine Drexel Award, Catholic Library Association – honors librarians who make a significant contribution to high school libraries.^[41]
• St. Katherine Drexel Award, Archdiocese of Louisville – honors outstanding primary school teachers.^[42]
• St. Katharine Drexel National Justice Award, Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament – honors individuals living a religious life who fight injustice and help the poor of all races.^[43]