Dorothy Day was born on November 8th, 1897. As a young child she received little exposure to Christianity, except for a few neighbors. Throughout her life she found religion very interesting and she always wanted to know more about the subject. Dorothy was well educated and started her early career as a journalist, like her father.
In her childhood Dorothy experienced many moves. In 1906 an earthquake hit San Francisco, where they were a fairly wealthy family, and Dorothy’s family moved to the south side of Chicago, where her father did not have a job at first. After a small period he received a job as an editor at a Chicago newspaper, but the position wasn’t as prestigious as his previous job. This is where Dorothy received her first experience with Catholicism. While in Chicago she had her first true experience with the poor, when she would take walks through the poor neighborhoods.
After she dropped out of the University of Illinois she moved to New York where she found a job as a reporter. She befriended many communists and agreed with Karl Marx in believing that religion was the “opiate of the people”. As a reporter she usually covered the social issues and rallies of the times. She interviewed all types of radical people fighting for causes.
Dorothy got involved in the protests herself, like when she was arrested in 1917 with 39 other women fighting for women suffrage in front of the White House. The women all organized a hunger strike while in captivity, that resulted in a presidential pardon for all of the women. She also protested American involvement in WWI, when she wrote for The Masses. After this time period she fel ...