The Drexel Sisters and Catholic Education
Education, Charity, and Privilege
When Francis A. Drexel died in 1885, he left his three daughters, Elizabeth, Katharine, and Louise Drexel, inheritances so incredible that the event made headlines. The sisters dedicated their sizable fortunes to funding Catholic education for underserved populations.
During their privileged childhood, the three sisters were highly educated by private tutors and lived a life of extreme luxury, splitting their time between the family’s home in the city at 1503 Walnut Street and their country mansion, San Michel, in Torresdale, northeast of Philadelphia. In the wake of the American Civil War that left so many widows and orphans in Philadelphia, Emma Bouvier Drexel—Elizabeth and Katharine’s stepmother and Louise’s mother—began an undertaking of direct charitable giving. She opened the family home three afternoons a week to distribute rent money, medicine, and clothing. This substantial direct assistance, valued at $20,000 annually (valued today at approximately half a million dollars), left a lasting impression on the three sisters. A combination of Emma’s influence, the sisters’ close relationships with their domestic staff, reports from missionary leaders, and their commitment to the Catholic faith guided the sisters in their later philanthropy.
Learn more about some of the Drexels’ domestic staff.
Did you know? Emma Bouvier Drexel was Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’s great, great aunt.
St. Francis de Sales’ Industrial School
Elizabeth Drexel Smith invested her energies in establishing and maintaining the St. Francis de Sales’ Industrial School in Eddington, Pennsylvania, about 17 miles north of Philadelphia along the Delaware River. The school's mission was to provide orphaned boys with lodging and an education in a trade.
Elizabeth died during childbirth in 1890 (the child did not survive), and her share of their father’s fortune was redistributed to her younger sisters. Louise Drexel Morrell took over the finances of St. Francis at that time. In 1892, Louise extended the school to include support for former students who had aged out of St. Francis. Drexmoor, on S. 9th Street in Philadelphia, became a home for these young men who had attended St. Francis Industrial School and worked in the city.
St. Emma’s Industrial and Agricultural Institute, Powhatan, VA, 1895-1972
Louise, and her husband Edward Morrell (who served as a congressman from 1899-1907), continued to support educational and antiracist charity work. Built on the Belmead estate, a plantation formerly owned by Confederate General Philip St. George Cocke, the couple founded St. Emma’s Industrial and Agricultural Institute in 1895 for African American boys. The school eventually became a Catholic military school.
While Katharine Drexel (who was canonized by the Catholic Church in 2000) is most remembered for her abandonment of high society to form her education—and service—focused Catholic order, the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, the youngest Drexel sister, Louise Morrell, was highly devoted to funding Catholic education and often aided her sister Katharine in her order’s work.
Read more about Louise on the Catholic Historical Research Center of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia website.
