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Finding aid for the Immaculate Heart Community records
7141
7141
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Table of contents
Contributing Institution:
USC Libraries Special Collections
Title: Immaculate Heart Community records
Creator:
Immaculate Heart
Community
Creator:
Sisters of the Immaculate
Heart of Mary
Identifier/Call Number: 7141
Physical Description:
139.88 Linear Feet
123 boxes
Physical Description:
3.8 Terabytes
14536 digital files in 808 digital folders
Date (inclusive): 1852-2021
Language of Material:
English , Spanish; Castilian .
The following information was copied from the Immaculate Heart
Community website (https://www.immaculateheartcommunity.org/ihc-history) on February 15,
2023.
In 1848, Canon Joaquin Masmitja de Puig, in response to the spiritual, educational, and
social needs of young women challenged by living in wartime Spain, founded the Daughters of
the Most Holy and Immaculate Heart of Mary in Olot, Catalonia. By 1868, their reputation as
skilled educators prompted Bishop Amat of California to invite them to found an educational
apostolate in Los Angeles. In 1871, ten pioneer sisters arrived in California and were
assigned to several locations before ultimately arriving to work in Los Angeles itself.
When Saint Vibiana Cathedral School opened in 1886 in the center of Los Angeles, IHM
sisters staffed the school. In 1906, the sisters opened the Immaculate Heart Convent and
Immaculate Heart High School on Franklin Avenue in Los Angeles. In 1916, they chartered and
opened Immaculate Heart College on the same property. In 1924 they became independent of
Spain and formed a Pontifical Institute aligned with American customs and sensibilities.
The decades following their independence from Spain were self-defining for the Immaculate
Heart Sisters. They opened a Novitiate and Retreat Center in Montecito, began hospital
ministries, and staffed many Catholic elementary schools and Catholic high schools.
Gradually, over the next few decades their service extended beyond California to include
schools in Texas, Arizona and Canada. Innovation, creativity and hospitality were hallmarks
that characterized the broad scope of their ministries and their service to communities.
From 1962-1965, the Second Vatican Council focused on the renewal of the Catholic Church
including women's and men's religious communities around the world. The Council called for
more effective ways to respond to newly emerging needs for service and for the
revitalization of the connection between people and Church. Responding to the changes
prompted by Vatican II and moved by contemporary philosophies, modern psychology and
evolving feminist consciousness, the Immaculate Heart Sisters embraced the call to
transformation.
Over a two-year period, community leaders initiated and engaged the Sisters in a deeply
reflective study that focused on the structure of their lives, the people they served and
their place in the changing world. Their study defined obstacles that impeded their efficacy
and ways that they might transcend these obstacles. Eminent theologians spoke to them about
the meaning of the Council documents and the process of bringing forth renewal in themselves
and in their work.
When the study was complete, an elected group of IHMs gathered in Montecito to develop the
response called for by the reforms of Vatican Council II. By 1967 they felt secure in their
decisions regarding flexible prayer times, contemporary dress and expanding their ministries
beyond health and education, as well as the commitment to professional formation for
educators.
This response, though prayerfully presented, was met with opposition and animosity from
Church officials, escalating to an irreconcilable impasse. The IHMs chose to remain true to
the integrity of their renewed vision and formed an independent community, without canonical
status, guided by the Decrees created in 1968.
This conflict precipitated the division of the Immaculate Heart Sisters into two groups:
those who chose to stay in canonical status and continued to live under the jurisdiction of
the Los Angeles Archdiocese, and those who elected to live independently and form the
community that exists today as the Immaculate Heart Community.
In 1968, those IHMs who held teaching positions in Catholic schools throughout the
Archdiocese of Los Angeles were involuntarily removed from their responsibilities. In other
dioceses Community members continued to teach in parochial elementary schools and high
schools under more sympathetic Church administrators. What had previously been IHM
ministries became separate non-profit corporations, including Immaculate Heart College,
Immaculate Heart High School, Queen of the Valley Hospital, and La Casa de Maria Retreat
Center. As a spiritual community desirous of continued service in the world, the Community,
under its new name, Immaculate Heart Community, re-designated itself as a public benefit
corporation in the state of California in 1970.
The Immaculate Heart Community records contain material spanning the history of the
Immaculate Heart Community (IHC), a Catholic religious teaching institute based in Los
Angeles, and its parent institution, the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (IHM),
founded in 1848 by Father Joaquin Masmitja de Puig in Olot, Catalonia (Spain). The material
in the collection was created between approximately 1852 and 2021 and consists of a wide
variety of items and formats including correspondence, administrative documents, programs,
photographs, newspaper clippings, publications, ephemera, and electronic content stored on
CDs, DVDs, audio and video tapes, high-density zip drives, and an external hard drive. The
collection covers a variety of topics and subjects about IHC's history from its founding in
Spain through its establishment and continued existence in California, including its
operations and various activities. The collection also highlights women's roles in
education, religious and spiritual life, the arts, and social activism.
This finding aid is based on collection documentation authored by Richard P. Hulser
Consulting in 2021. Hulser created this documentation when the collection was stored in two
locations owned by the Immaculate Heart Community (IHC): the IHC Kenmore apartment building
and the IHC headquarters at Franklin Avenue. The inventory from the Hulser Consulting
project is structured by the physical areas where the collection was stored. USC has
preserved this link between (i) the collection's former physical arrangement and (ii) the
collection description's intellectual arrangement as it appears in this finding aid.
However, the collection's former physical separation did not reflect a meaningful
intellectual distinction (i.e., related materials with similar date ranges and/or subjects
were stored in both IHC locations).
Collection stored off-site. Advance notice required for access.
This collection includes both analog and born-digital files. The born-digital files
described under the series titled "
Rebel Hearts documentary"
have been copied to the USC Digital Repository. The digital files are not publicly
accessible online. Researchers wishing to request access to the digital files should email
specol@usc.edu.
Access to the analog (CD-R) recordings of the oral history interviews described under the
series titled "Immaculate Heart Community Oral Histories - USC Digital Library" is
restricted. Digitized copies of the recordings have been made available via the USC Digital
Library (see the link below under "Digital Material").
All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in
writing to the President of the Immaculate Heart Community. Contact President, Immaculate
Heart Community at 5515 Franklin Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90028-5901 or
ihmla@ihmoffice.org
Rights Statement for Archival Description
Finding aid description and metadata are licensed under an Attribution 4.0 International
(CC BY 4.0) license.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Gift of the Immaculate Heart Community, August 23, 2022.
The USC Digital Library digitized 114 IHC oral history interviews completed between 1987
and 2009. See the link under the "Digital Material" section of this finding aid for access
to the Digital Library's collection of digitized oral histories. Some of the metadata from
this digitization project has been imported into this finding aid -- see the series titled
"Immaculate Heart Community Oral Histories - USC Digital Library."
[Box/folder no. or item name], Immaculate Heart Community records, Collection no. 7141,
Regional History Collection, Special Collections, USC Libraries, University of Southern
California
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Catholic Church -- California -- Los Angeles -- History -- 20th century
-- Archival resources
Catholics -- United States -- History -- 20th century -- Archival
resources
Nuns -- California -- Archival resources
Nuns -- Spain -- Archival resources
Nuns as teachers -- California -- Los Angeles -- Archival
resources
Teaching -- Religious aspects -- Catholic Church
Women -- California -- Los Angeles -- History -- Archival
resources
Women in nonprofit organizations -- California -- Los Angeles --
Archival resources
Women political activists -- California -- Los Angeles -- Archival
resources
Administrative records
Audiotapes
Born digital
Correspondence
Digital media
Ephemera
Moving images
Newspaper clippings
Oral histories (document genres)
Photographs
Programs (documents)
Publications (documents)
Corita, 1918-1986 --
Archives
Caspary, Anita Marie,
1915-2011 -- Archives
Immaculate Heart Community --
Archives
McIntyre, J. Francis A. (James
Francis Aloysius), 1886-1979 -- Archives
Sisters of the Immaculate
Heart of Mary -- Archives