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This dataset contains transcriptions of records of missions held in by the Paulist Fathers, a Roman Catholic missionary order, in the nineteenth-century United States. This dataset contains only the most interesting data recorded in the full Paulist mission chronicles. The founding members of the Paulist Fathers began as members of the Redemptorist order. Their chronicles include both the missions held as Redemptorists and as Paulists. This transcription only includes missions up to the year 1893; the Paulist Chronicles contain more records than are transcribed here, and the Paulists continued holding missions for many more years than are recorded in the Chronicles.

Usage

paulist_missions

Format

A data frame with 841 observations of 17 variables.

Variables

  • mission_number: The number assigned to the mission in the Paulist Mission Chronicles.

  • church: The name of the church or cathedral at which the mission was held.

  • city, state: The location of the mission.

  • start_date, end_date: The start and end dates of the mission as date objects.

  • year: The year of the mission.

  • decade: The decade of the mission (useful for faceting).

  • duration_days, duration_years: The duration of the mission in days (as an integer) and in weeks (as an ordered factor).

  • confessions: The number of confessions heard by the Paulists at the mission, which is a rough proxy for the number of people who attended the mission.

  • converts: The total number of converts made during the mission and people left under instruction for conversion after the mission was over.

  • order: Whether the mission was held under the Redemptorist or Paulist order.

  • lat, long: The latitude and longitude of the city where the mission was held.

  • volume, page: The location of the mission record in the Paulist mission chronicles.

References

The Paulist missions are recorded in Chronicle of the Missions Given by the Congregation of Missionary Priests of St. Paul the Apostle, six manuscript volumes, Office of Paulist History and Archives, North American Paulist Center, Washington, DC. Data transcribed by Lincoln Mullen.

Author

Lincoln Mullen, George Mason University

Examples

head(paulist_missions)
#> # A tibble: 6 × 17
#>   mission_number church           city  state date_start date_end    year decade
#>            <int> <chr>            <chr> <chr> <date>     <date>     <dbl> <chr> 
#> 1              1 St. Joseph's Ch… New … NY    1851-04-06 1851-04-20  1851 1850s 
#> 2              2 St. Michael's C… Lore… PA    1851-04-27 1851-05-11  1851 1850s 
#> 3              3 St. Mary's Chur… Holl… PA    1851-05-18 1851-05-28  1851 1850s 
#> 4              4 Church of St. J… John… PA    1851-05-31 1851-06-08  1851 1850s 
#> 5              5 St. Peter's Chu… New … NY    1851-09-28 1851-10-12  1851 1850s 
#> 6              6 St. Patrick's C… New … NY    1851-10-19 1851-11-03  1851 1850s 
#> # ℹ 9 more variables: duration_days <int>, duration_weeks <ord>,
#> #   confessions <int>, converts <int>, order <chr>, lat <dbl>, long <dbl>,
#> #   volume <int>, page <int>