Dorothy Day: Dissenting Voice of the American Century

Biographers Loughery (Dagger John) and Randolph (Charles Lindbergh) deliver a painstakingly detailed portrait of Catholic social activist Dorothy Day (1897–1980). Born in Brooklyn, Day experienced “genteel poverty” before her sportswriter father found work at a staunchly Republican newspaper in Chicago. After a short college stint, she moved to New York City, started writing for left-wing dailies, and by age 19 was part of a bohemian Greenwich Village scene that included Eugene O’Neill and Jews Without Money author Mike Gold (Day dated both men). Though she would later declare, “All my life, I have been haunted by God,” it was Day’s desire to baptize her daughter—who was born out of wedlock in 1926—that catalyzed her conversion to Catholicism. With French theologian Peter Maurin, she founded the Catholic Worker newspaper in 1933 and became the charismatic and controversial leading voice of a social justice movement. Day defended conscientious objectors, ran afoul of the Archdiocese of New York, and, at age 75, spent two weeks in jail for joining Cesar Chavez’s United Farm Workers Strike. Loughery and Randolph skillfully capture the varied atmospheres of Day’s diverse milieus and offer valuable insight into her lifelong intellectual awakening. Readers interested in progressive causes will find inspiration in this granular biography of a “mesmerizing, demanding, paradoxical woman.” [em](Mar.) [/em]