Loretto

"Of all the historical wonders for which Santa Fe is renowned, the Miracle Staircase in her fine Gothic Revival chapel must rank among the most spectacular. The Chapel of Our Lady of Light (Loretto Chapel), with its gravity-defying staircase, draws visitors by the hundreds of thousands to its doors each year. Historian Mary J. Straw Cook has written the history of this impressive Gothic Revival building and of the Sisters of Loretto, who left the comforts of their Kentucky environs to establish a mission on the frontier to educate and guide the souls of Bishop Lamy's diocese. This is New Mexico history seen through the eyes of women in the second half of the nineteenth century.". "New Mexico would have no such reservoir of women's history today were it not for the Sisters of Loretto. The author's research took her to the order's Motherhouse in Kentucky and to France, where she was able to uncover the identity of the man who is believed to have been the carpenter of Loretto's spiral staircase. She deftly interweaves accounts of the chapel's construction with the Sisters' personal tale of survival, struggle and triumph."--BOOK JACKET.