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John Dawson Gilmary Shea Edit Profile

also known as John Dawson

editor historian

John Dawson Gilmary Shea was an American historian and editor, called “Father of American Catholic History”.

Background

He was born on July 22, 1824 in New York City, New York, United States. He was the son of James and Mary Ann (Flannigan) Shea.

His father came from Ireland in 1815, tutored in General Schuyler's household, established a private school with Eber Wheaton, taught English in Columbia College, served as a captain of militia and as a Tammany chieftain, and became a leader in Irish and Catholic affairs, though he fought Bishops Dubois and Hughes on the trustee question. His mother traced a maternal descent from Nicholas Upsall, one of Boston's earliest settlers, and also from Thomas McCurtin, an Irish schoolmaster, who established a classical school at Mount Holly, New Jersey, in 1762.

Baptized John Dawson, Shea adopted the name Gilmary when he became a novice in the Society of Jesus.

Education

He early showed a liking for books and received his first training in the Sisters of Charity school, Mulberry Street, and in the Columbia Grammar School, graduating from the latter in 1837. Friendly connections procured him a position in the counting-house of Don Tomas, a Spanish merchant, where he gained a knowledge of Spanish, apparently learned little about the acquisition of money.

Later he studied law. As a novice, he studied at St. John's College, Fordham (1848 - 50), and at St. Mary's College, Montreal (1850 - 52), where he learned enough canon law to be consulted in later years by various prelates and acquired a fluent command of French.

Career

When only fourteen years old he contributed an article to the Children's Catholic Magazine. In 1846 he was admitted to the bar, but found himself more interested in reading history than in preparing briefs.

Fascinated by George Bancroft's History of the United States, he became a member of the New York Historical Society and wrote a series of articles on "Our Martyrs" for the United States Catholic Magazine (1846 - 47), which may have led him, in 1848, into the Society of Jesus.

Of more vital importance was his association with the trained Jesuit historian, Felix Martin, whose biography of Father Jogues he translated in 1885. During this period he also came under the influence of the historical editor, Edmund Bailey O'Callaghan. In 1852, the year he gave up thoughts of a religious life, Shea published Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi Valley, which he dedicated to Jared Sparks. This work won him the favor of contemporary historians and invitations to become a corresponding member of the historical societies of Wisconsin, Maryland, and Massachusetts. Meanwhile, he had commenced to write the innumerable articles which appeared through succeeding years in the United States Catholic Magazine, the Catholic World, the United States Historical Magazine, the American Catholic Quarterly Review, the Boston Pilot, and similar publications.

Lack of money and his marriage compelled him to form a connection with E. Dunigan & Brother, publishers. For this firm he compiled First Book of History (1854), A General History of Modern Europe (1854), and A School History of the United States (1855), which were adopted rather widely in Catholic schools.

Shea, under pressure, found time to do many things: to contribute several chapters to Justin Winsor's Narrative and Critical History of America; to compile articles for encyclopedias; to edit Sadlier's General Catholic Directory (1858 - 90); to assist James Lenox in collecting Americana; to serve Archbishop Hughes as a diocesan historiographer with a resultant volume, The Catholic Churches of New York City (1878); to edit the Library of American Linguistics (1860 - 74), including some fifteen Indian grammars and dictionaries; to work on the Historical Magazine (1855 - 67); to edit without credit a pocket Catholic Bible and a patriotic volume of sketches, The Fallen Brave (1861); and to join John Ireland, R. H. Clarke, and Charles G. Herbermann in founding the United States Catholic Historical Society, of which he was editor (1887 - 89) and president (1890).

He continued to work in his own field, compiling History of the Catholic Missions among the Indian Tribes of the United States, 1529-1854 (1854); editing twenty-six volumes of Jesuit relations (1857-87) which had not been included in the collection issued by the Canadian government; publishing History and General Description of New France (1866 - 72), a translation in six volumes of P. F. X de Charlevoix's work; and writing his monumental, critical, and impartial History of the Catholic Church in the United States in four large volumes (1886 - 92).

He prepared the Memorial of the First Centenary of Georgetown College (1891). Impoverished, he wrote to Archbishop Corrigan in 1889, asking for a clerkship in the chancery office or even in Calvary Cemetery office, for he was too proud to become a pensioner.

When the Catholic University at Washington was established, he vainly hoped for a call to the chair of history. Instead, he was given an editorship on Herman Ridder's Catholic News (1889), which enabled him to support his family in a humble home in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and to complete his great historical work. In that city he died.

Achievements

  • John Dawson Gilmary Shea was the first president of the Catholic Historical Society of the United States. Besides, he was an outstanding historian and the greatest American Catholic historical writer, he was most famous for his comprehensive study of early Indian missions in America, the Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi Valley. He was the first person to be awarded the Laetare Medal by the University of Notre Dame in 1883. In 1945 the John Gilmary Shea Prize was established by the American Catholic Historical Association for the most original and distinguished contribution to the knowledge of the history of the Roman Catholic Church. Shea was inducted into the Fordham University Hall of Honor in 2008.

Connections

He married in 1854 to Sophie Savage, of old Puritan lineage, by whom he had two daughters.

Father:
James Shea

Mother:
Mary Ann (Flannigan) Shea

Spouse:
Sophie Savage

influencer:
Edmund Bailey O'Callaghan