“Is It Not Possible to Be a Radical and a Christian?” Dorothy Day Navigates the Patriarchal Worlds of Journalism and Catholicism A thesis presented to the faculty of the Scripps College of Communication of Ohio University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science Bailey G. Dick August 2018 © 2018 Bailey G. Dick. All Rights Reserved. This thesis titled “Is It Not Possible to Be a Radical and a Christian?” Dorothy Day Navigates the Patriarchal Worlds of Journalism and Catholicism by BAILEY G. DICK has been approved for the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism and the Scripps College of Communication by Michael S. Sweeney Professor, E.W. Scripps School of Journalism Scott Titsworth Dean, Scripps College of Communication ii Abstract DICK, BAILEY G., M.S., August 2018, E.W. Scripps School of Journalism “Is It Not Possible to Be a Radical and a Christian?” Dorothy Day Navigates the Patriarchal Worlds of Journalism and Catholicism Director of thesis: Michael S. Sweeney This thesis examines the journalistic and nonfiction work of radical Catholic activist and journalist Dorothy Day, and her ability to be both faithfully Catholic and fully radical in her writing and work. Day founded The Catholic Worker newspaper and its accompanying movement. Although Day did not self-identify as a feminist and criticized the second-wave feminist movement, Day’s lifelong commitment to sharing the viewpoints of the marginalized, as well as her understanding of suffering, reflected beliefs that are in line with both feminist theoretical approaches and are reflective of Catholic teaching. As this thesis demonstrates, through her leveraging and adherence to traditions and teachings, Day was able to access male-dominated spaces, gain legitimacy within the patriarchal structures, and later share her more radical, yet faithful, beliefs with readers and the Church in order to create change from within in both the Church and the newspaper industry. Through a use of primary documents found in Day’s personal papers, this thesis applies historical research methods to make the case for Day as an example of an authentically Catholic and simultaneous feminist life vis a vis the Catholic theory of personalism and the application of feminist standpoint theory. iii Dedication To all “self-possessed girl[s] of twenty, cool-mannered, tweed-wearing, drinking rye whiskey straight with no discernable effect and smoking like a chimney at a time when women weren’t allowed to smoke in public.” Like Dorothy, your long loneliness (and your ability to drink and smoke like that) won’t last forever. iv Acknowledgments I am indebted to Phillip Runkel, archivist of the Dorothy Day Collection at Marquette University, for his help and hospitality as I combed through all of Dorothy’s papers. The library and the Catholic Worker collection proved to be the heart of this thesis, and without it, my study would be incomplete. Thanks are also due to the folks at the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker House in Washington, D.C., the White Rose Catholic Worker Community in Chicago, and Jonah House in Baltimore for baptizing me by fire in all things nonviolence, resistance, and hospitality. To Loyola University Chicago’s Campus Ministry Department, thank you for sending me—in so many ways. This thesis would not be done without my A-Team committee: Drs. Mike Sweeney, Aimee Edmondson, and Katherine Jellison. They are the goodest of people, wisest of brains, and my privy council. I owe you all my life. To my Thursday night family dinner crew: Natascha Toft, Tess Herman, Jeff Zidonis, Allie White, and David Lee. You are my chosen family. Thank you for making my house a home. To Molly, Chris, Finn, and Annie Roach: Thank you for being my Athens family, and for always making sure I had Friday night plans and leftovers to eat. To my family: Thank you for not disowning me when I quit my job to go back to school. To my mom, Kelly: Thank you for pushing me. You were and are, in perpetuity, right. To my dad, Dan: By having an open ear for the last twenty-seven years, you have made a tough life easier to live. To my brother, Liam: You are wise, brave, and I am endlessly proud of you. And to my sweet pup, Frances Bean. Without you, life itself would not be possible— and significantly less adorable. v Table of Contents Page Abstract .............................................................................................................................. iii Dedication .......................................................................................................................... iv Acknowledgments ............................................................................................................... v Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 7 Chapter 1 ........................................................................................................................... 15 Chapter 2 ........................................................................................................................... 45 Chapter 3 ........................................................................................................................... 69 Chapter 4 ......................................................................................................................... 104 Chapter 5 ......................................................................................................................... 130 A Note on Sources .......................................................................................................... 144 Bibliography ................................................................................................................... 147 vi Introduction When septuagenarian Dorothy Day headed to Newark in 1975, she was already on edge. Day knew she would be testifying in front of a handful of the American Church’s1 most prominent bishops during a hearing of the U.S. Catholic Bishops’ bicentennial program, and she hated public speaking. But when she arrived, Day learned she would be speaking not just to three or four bishops, but to nearly twenty bishops. When she sat down to face them, Day’s anxiety was compounded by a microphone that refused to work. One of the bishops sprung up to help her. Day fiddled with the microphone again and was met with silence. With each adjustment of the microphone, Day was joined on stage by yet another bishop eager to help the woman—and perhaps eager to make a good impression on her. Historian David O’Brien wrote that these over- eager bishops were “at least as nervous as she was.” And with good reason: The bishops were standing before a woman who had come to demand authority, even from the Church’s most influential, entirely male leadership. Through her decades of work as a newspaper editor, radical activist and leader of a social movement, Day came to command attention from not only that panel of bishops, but from the Catholic Church writ large. As O’Brien said of Day’s appearance that morning, “If there was authority and indeed if there was power in that room, it sat in her chair, not up there with the bishops — And they knew it.”2 Since then, Day has been called “the most influential, interesting, and significant figure” in the history of American Catholicism,3 as well as its “radical conscience.”4 While Day and her life have been long admired by activist-types and the social 7 justice wing of the Catholic Church, her complex life and legacy remained unknown to many Americans for decades. When Pope Francis addressed a joint session of Congress in 2015, he spoke of four “great Americans”: theologian Thomas Merton, Martin Luther King Jr., Abraham Lincoln—and Dorothy Day. In just hours, Day’s name was Googled 100,000 times in the U.S., and 31,000 people had posted about her on Facebook. Day spent more than six decades in the newspaper industry, starting as a “stunt girl” reporter covering economic injustice and social upheaval. She later penned deeply personal and theological columns published continuously from 1933 to 1980 as the founder and editor of The Catholic Worker, a newspaper that reached a circulation of more than 100,000, and which still sells for just a penny per copy. Day’s personal life and tumultuous early years, marked by multiple failed marriages, an abortion, a child out of wedlock, and two suicide attempts, profoundly influenced her work, her writing, and her faith. Day’s life of seeming contradictions and paradoxes, the profound suffering she experienced, and subsequent action on behalf of others who suffered as well, displays profound nuances that played out in her writing and work, and prove that Day was not typical of the journalists, women, or Catholics of her time. What perhaps sets Day apart from her activist contemporaries, as well as other Catholic leaders of the era, is a combination of her deep faith and her identity as a woman. As a young woman, Day’s radicalism was almost en vogue, as she lived and worked among the bohemian set in 1920s New York. Yet, as her writing and her beliefs evolved, Day’s radicalism and activism became grounded in a deep commitment to the Catholic faith. Day lived out her beliefs daily, initially through acts of defiance and involvement with well-known radical groups outside the conventional structures and 8 norms for women of her time. Later in life, Day committed small, quiet, daily acts of hospitality and radicalism that challenged societal