Women | Page 64 | MNopedia

Bishop, Harriet E. (1817–1883)

Harriet Bishop, best known as the founder of St. Paul’s first public and Sunday schools, was also a social reformer, land agent, and writer. In the 1840s, she led a vanguard of white, middle-class, Protestant women who sought to bring “moral order” to the multi-cultural fur-trade society of pre-territorial Minnesota.

Agnes Keenan (left) and her sister, Anna Keenan (Sister Immaculata, CSJ)

Agnes Keenan (left) and her sister, Anna Keenan (Sister Immaculata, CSJ), c.1960. From the Agnes Keenan Collection. St. Catherine University Archives, St. Paul.

Professor Agnes Keenan

Agnes Keenan, c.1945. From the Agnes Keenan Collection. St. Catherine University Archives, St. Paul.

Agnes Keenan in her office

Agnes Keenan in her office, c.1950. From the Agnes Keenan Collection. St. Catherine University Archives, St. Paul.

Sister Mary William Brady, Agnes Keenan, and Sister Maris Stella

From left to right: Sister Mary William Brady, Agnes Keenan, and Sister Maris Stella Smith (later Sister Alice Smith), 1961. From the Agnes Keenan Collection. St. Catherine University Archives, St. Paul.

Agnes Keenan

Agnes Keenan, c.1975. From the Agnes Keenan Collection. St. Catherine University Archives, St. Paul.

Keenan, Agnes (1910–1979)

Agnes Keenan’s name is among the most prominent in the history of St. Catherine’s College—the school that became St. Catherine University. Although she was born in Aberdeen, South Dakota, in 1910, Keenan spent most of her life in St. Paul working as a teacher and community leader.