A Dominican Sister Confronts Caste: The Racial Justice Awakenings of Sister Mary Ellen O’Hanlon, O.P.

Abstract:In the 1930s, Sister Mary Ellen O’Hanlon, O.P. (1882–1961), a Dominican Sister of Sinsinawa, Wisconsin, combined scientific and religious reasons in combating racism and anti-Semitism. A nationally recognized biologist, botanist, and college professor, she was awakened to the problem of “caste,” leading her to author two important works: Racial Myths (1946) and The Heresy of Race (1950). Late in her life, she wrote an autobiography titled “Three Careers,” in which she detailed the complex routes that led to her religious vocation, scientific studies, publications, and lectures and—most significantly to her— confronting caste in all its forms.