Summary

Reed described the convent as a prison

Prison

A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...

, where young girls were forced into Catholicism, with grotesque punishment for those who refused. This book, along with a growing number of propaganda

Propaganda

Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....

 magazines including the Christian Watchman and Boston Recorder, stoked the fires of anti-Catholicism in Boston and the surrounding area.

Circulation prior to publication

Although not published until 1835, some versions of the manuscript apparently circulated among the primarily Protestant student community, and versions of it may have gained wider circulation in Charlestown. Some authors, including a former student at the school, have speculated that discussion of the manuscript may have contributed to the anti-Catholic sentiment which incited the riots.

The author

Rebecca Reed was a young Episcopalian woman from Boston who had attended the school in 1831 as a charity scholar: a day student for whom the convent waived tuition fees. In 1832, she declared her intent to enter the Ursuline novitiate

Novitiate

Novitiate, alt. noviciate, is the period of training and preparation that a novice monastic or member of a religious order undergoes prior to taking vows in order to discern whether they are called to the religious life....

, but left the convent after six months as a postulant

Postulant

A postulant was originally one who makes a request or demand; hence, a candidate. The use of the term is now generally restricted to those asking for admission into a monastery or a convent, both before actual admission and for the length of time preceding their admission into the novitiate...

 (originally one who makes a request or demand, hence a candidate).

Ursuline Convent Riots

Reed's claims inspired an angry mob to burn down

Ursuline Convent Riots

The Ursuline Convent Riots were riots that occurred on August 11 and August 12, 1834 in Charlestown, Massachusetts, near Boston in what is now Somerville, Massachusetts. During the riot, a convent of Roman Catholic Ursuline nuns was burned down by a Protestant mob...

 the convent, and her narrative, released three years later as the rioters were tried, famously sold 200,000 copies in one month.

Maria Monk

Reed's book was soon followed by another bestselling fraudulent exposé, Awful Disclosures of the Hotel-Dieu Nunnery, (1836) in which Maria Monk

Maria Monk

Maria Monk was a Canadian woman who claimed to have been a nun who had been sexually exploited in her convent...

 claimed that a convent in Montreal served as a harem for Catholic priest

Priest

A priest is a person authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities...

s, and that any resulting children were murdered after baptism. The tale of Maria Monk was, in fact, clearly modeled on the Gothic novels popular in the early 19th century. This literary genre had already been used for anti-Catholic sentiments in works such as Matthew Lewis' The Monk

The Monk

The Monk: A Romance is a Gothic novel by Matthew Gregory Lewis, published in 1796. It was written before the author turned 20, in the space of 10 weeks.-Characters:...

.