Dorothy May Day (1897 - 1980)

Born 8 Nov 1897 in Bath Beach, Brooklyn, New York City, New York, United States

Ancestors

Wife of Berkeley Tobey — married 19 Feb 1921 (to about 1921) in Greenwich, Connecticut

Descendants

Died 29 Nov 1980 at age 83 in Maryhouse, New York City, New York, United States

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Biography

Dorothy Day is Notable.

Dorothy Day was a part of the Human Rights Activists Movement.

Dorothy Day, Obl.S.B., (November 8, 1897 – November 29, 1980) was an American journalist, social activist, and Catholic convert. She worked hard to better the lives of the poor and homeless through the Catholic Worker movement. She became famous after her conversion. She initially lived a bohemian lifestyle before becoming Catholic, including time spent in jail for suffragette protests^[1]. This conversion to Catholicism is described in her autobiography, The Long Loneliness. ^[2][3][4].

She co-founded The Catholic Worker newspaper, and continued editing the newspaper until she died in 1980 at the Maryhouse at 55 East 3rd Street, New York on the Lower East Side. ^[5]. Both the newspaper and the Maryhouse continue to operate today.

An extensive collection of records about Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker movement is held at the Marquette University Library ^[6]. CatholicWorker.org also holds a collection of Day's essays and letters online^[7].

Dorothy Day was born on November 8, 1897 in Brooklyn, New York. ^[8] Her parents were John Day and Grace Satterlee Day.

Dorothy Day married Berkeley Tobey 19 February 1921 in Greenwich, Connecticut. She left on her “honeymoon” sometime between then and that June. She noted later that her total time abroad was 8 months. The two had separated by the time she returned. Malcolm Cowley told William Miller that, due to a quirk in the state laws “no marriage was legal unless it was consummated in the state of Connecticut, so Berkeley was very careful not to consummate a marriage in the state of Connecticut, and thereupon when the marriage broke up, as they all did, there would be no question of divorce. It would simply be the slate wiped clean.” ^[9]

Dorothy and Forster Batterham entered into a relationship in 1925, settling on Staten Island. She would later regard it as a common-law marriage; Batterham was opposed to marriage as an institution. Even though they separated after the birth of their daughter Tamar, they remained friends for the rest of her life. ^[10]

During the Great Depression, she worked with the poor and helped establish the Catholic Worker movement. This movement led to hospitality houses and farming communes and has spread all over the world. She wrote a paper about helping the homeless and shortly after, a woman came to her door. She knew she was meant to help. She rented two places. In one she put 10 women who were homeless and the other was for men, this grew quickly and was soon helping hundreds in the New York area. It soon jumped to 33 shelters across the U.S. that fed and housed the homeless with nothing in return. Everyone, ever religion, creed, color, etc was welcome and accepted. Mother Teresa heard of her work and took a trip to pin a cross on Dorothy. The first step to being made a saint is to be recognized as "a Servant of God", which has been done for her. She is quoted as saying "The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution which has to start with each one of us."^[11]

Sources

1. ↑ Turning Point Suffragist Memorial
2. ↑ Dorothy Day AMERICAN JOURNALIST, Encyclopædia Britannica
3. ↑ The Catholic Worker Movement
4. ↑ Dorothy Day, Biography.com
5. ↑ "Community Cornerstone: Maryhouse", Off the Grid blog, by the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation. November 24, 2014
6. ↑ Marquette University Library, Special Collections
7. ↑ The Writings of Dorothy Day, CatholicWorker.org ]
8. ↑ "New York, New York City Births, 1846-1909," database, FamilySearch: 11 February 2018, Dorothy May Day, 08 Nov 1897; citing Manhattan, New York, New York, United States, reference cn 16759 New York Municipal Archives, New York; FHL microfilm 1,324,436.
9. ↑ Connecticut Vital Records — Index of Marriages, 1897-2001
10. ↑ Miller, William D. Dorothy Day, a Biography. 1982
11. ↑ Meltzer, Brad, Heroes for my Daughter, pp 24-25, Harper Collins Publishing

See also:

• Biography.com Profile
• FamilySearch Person: KGPS-V5X
• National Women's Hall of Fame
• Wikipedia Entry
• Find A Grave: Memorial #6246009