From the publisher Truman State University Press
“In 1818, a small group of Catholic clerics established a religious community in southeastern Missouri and opened a school, grounded in its European Vincentian roots but influenced by the isolation of its rural location. St. Mary’s of the Barrens because the first American institution of higher learning west of the Mississippi River and only the fourth Catholic seminary in the United States. Over the years, St. Mary’s emerged as a significant institution whose early leaders played an important role in the development of the Catholic Church on the American frontier. The school’s subsequent history reflected the changing status of the growing American Catholic community. In this history of “the Barrens,” Rick Janet demonstrates how its story reflects the broader sweep of the American Catholic experience.”

Richard J. Janet currently serves as professor of history at Rockhurst University in Kansas City, where he has taught since 1985. He received the PhD in modern European history from the University of Notre Dame. Janet is the author of numerous articles, essays, and reviews (both scholarly and popular). His work on the history of the Congregation of the Mission in the United States is supported by the Vincentian Studies Institute of DePaul University.

ISBN: 978161281982
Available as an ebook and paperback edition.