a biography of the day--dorothy day
Dorothy Day
Dorothy Day, Obl.S.B. (November 8, 1897 – November 29, 1980) was an American journalist, social activist, and devout Catholic convert; she advocated the Catholic economic theory of distributism. She was also considered to be an anarchist[2][3][4] and did not hesitate to use the term.[5] In the 1930s, Day worked closely with fellow activist Peter Maurin to establish the Catholic Worker movement, a nonviolent, pacifist movement that continues to combine direct aid for the poor and homeless with nonviolent direct action on their behalf.
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By 1913 Dorothy Day had read Peter Kropotkin, an advocate of anarchist communism, which influenced her ideas in how society could be organized.[9] In 1914, Day attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on a scholarship, but dropped out after two years and moved to New York City.[10] Day was a reluctant scholar.[10] Her reading was chiefly in a radical social direction.[10] She avoided campus social life and insisted on supporting herself rather than live on money from her father, a characteristic she was to maintain for the rest of her life, to the point of buying all her clothing and shoes from discount stores to save money.
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The Catholic Worker Movement
Peter Maurin
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The Catholic Worker movement started with the publication of the Catholic Worker, first issued on May 1, 1933. It was established to promote Catholic social teaching in the depths of the Great Depression and to stake out a neutral, pacifist position in the war-torn 1930s.[23] (See the Catholic Worker: The Aims and Means of the Catholic Worker.) This grew into a "house of hospitality" in the slums of New York City and then a series of farms for people to live together communally.[24] She lived for a time at the now-demolished Spanish Camp community in the Annadale section of Staten Island.[25] The movement quickly spread to other cities in the United States and to Canada and the United Kingdom; more than 30 independent but affiliated CW communities had been founded by 1941. Well over 100 communities exist today, including several in Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, the Republic of Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, and Sweden.[26]
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Despite suffering from poor health, Day traveled around the world to preach the power of God's love and the way of pacifism. She went to India, where she met Mother Teresa and saw her work. She joined Cesar Chavez in his efforts to provide justice for farm laborers in the fields of California. There, at the age of 76, she was arrested with other protestors and spent ten days in jail.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Day