From Framework to Freedom: A History of the Sister Formation Conference

This book brings light to an area of American history that has received little attention: the educational history of the American women religious and the place of the Sister Formation Conference (SFC) within that history. This study places the movement in a broad historical context that encompasses the directions and directives of the Church, the educational trends of the period, and the struggles and developments within American religious life during this time.

About the Author :
Marjorie Noterman Beane, who holds a Ph.D. in Historical Foundations of Education, is Associate Vice-President for Programmatic Development at Loyola University in Chicago.

Review :
From Framework to Freedom is a clear, concise overview of the education of women religious in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s. Marjorie Noterman Beane has made a real contribution to scholarship through her chronicle of this forgotten chapter in American Catholic studies. It is a book that belongs in every Catholic college library across the nation. -- Timothy Walch, U.S. Catholic historian, author of Parish School: American Catholic Parochial Education from Colonial Times to the Present (2003) The Sister Formation Conference was a landmark development in the history of American Catholic women religious. The readiness of American women religious for the challenges of the Second Vatican Council and the progressive role that many of them haveplayed in american and world Catholicism since the Council is scarcely understandable apart from the work done by the Sister Formation Conference in the decade from 1954-1964. Dr. Marjorie Noterman Beane has made an important contribution to American Catholic History and to American women's history through her careful reconstruction of the work of this movement. -- Rosemary Radford Ruether, Claremont School of Theology ...a real service for readers interested in the Sister Formation Conference. -- Rosemary Radford Ruether, Claremont School of Theology Review For Religious Beane's account...is well done, accurate and adequately documented. -- Rosemary Radford Ruether, Claremont School of Theology The Catholic Historical Review This is the singlemost important text demonstrating that Sisters began changing long before Vatican II. It will be the guidepost from which hopefully more indepth historical and sociological studies of the Sister Formation Movement and Sister Formation Conference, will emerge. -- Sr. Mary Lea Schneider, President, Cardinal Stritch College This is the singlemost important text demonstrating that Sisters began changing long before Vatican II. It will be the guidepost from which hopefully more indepth historical and sociological studies of the Sister Formation Movement and Sister Formation Conference, will emerge. -- Sr. Mary Lea Schneider, President, Cardinal Stritch College From Framework to Freedom is a clear, concise overview of the education of women religious in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s. Marjorie Noterman Beane has made a real contribution to scholarship through her chronicle of this forgotten chapter in American Catholic studies. It is a book that belongs in every Catholic college library across the nation. -- Timothy Walch, U.S. Catholic historian, author of Parish School: American Catholic Parochial Education from Colonial Times to the Present (2003) The Sister Formation Conference was a landmark development in the history of American Catholic women religious. The readiness of American women religious for the challenges of the Second Vatican Council and the progressive role that many of them have played in american and world Catholicism since the Council is scarcely understandable apart from the work done by the Sister Formation Conference in the decade from 1954-1964. Dr. Marjorie Noterman Beane has made an important contribution to American Catholic History and to American women's history through her careful reconstruction of the work of this movement. -- Rosemary Radford Ruether, Claremont School of Theology ...a real service for readers interested in the Sister Formation Conference. -- Rosemary Radford Ruether, Claremont School of Theology Review For Religious Beane's account...is well done, accurate and adequately documented. -- Rosemary Radford Ruether, Claremont School of Theology The Catholic Historical Review