Subjected and productive bodies: The educational vision of the
Ursulines in early colonial New Orleans  Tracy Ebbs, University
of Pennsylvania   The Ursuline nuns who arrived in New Orleans
in 1727 were subjected and productive bodies--subjected in that
their limited power was exercised on the Church's terms and
remained within a religious framework, and productive in that
they helped to stabilize the colony and proselytize the
inhabitants. Founded in sixteenth-century Italy, the Ursuline
order grew and flourished under Tridentine law as an
organization whose purpose was to provide girls with a Catholic
education. In seventeenth-century France, the order became
firmly established as a Catholic educational institution whose
success lay in its willingness to accept the Church's stringent
regulations governing women's religious orders and education,
and in its development and standardization of a Catholic
educational program. Between 1727 and 1734, the Ursulines were
established in New Orleans as a vanguard of C