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Orestes A. Brownson: An American Traditionalist, Marianne Oswald

Dissertations and Theses

Orestes A. Brownson was an American journalist who converted to Catholicism in 1844, at the age of forty-one. He had been writing editorials and occasionally managing publications since 1828 in

connection with religious activities as minister to various sects, Brownson, from the 1830's on, read, reviewed, and kept abreast of European literature concerned with philosophy, social, political, and

economic theory. It was assumed that he continued that practice after his conversion in 1844 and that he would enlist the aid of European Catholic theorists to develop an acceptable Catholic system of thought—particularly since American Catholic literature in the mid-nineteenth century …