Searching
Growing up in a secular household, Day finds an early love for religion. She pairs her study of the Bible with an avid yearning for political change, inspired by Upton Sinclair's novels. She lived in both Chicago and San Francisco. After dropping out of college in Illinois, she decided to pursue political writing full time in New York. Unwilling to compromise her attention span for stability, she lived in community with political radicals and maintained a simple lifestyle, often volunteering her time in various socialist campaigns.
Natural Happiness
Day has an affair with Lionel Moise and aborts their child. Unable to move past that first love, she spends her first marriage -- to Berkeley Tobey -- in Europe writing a novel about her time with Moise. Needless to say the marriage ended. Next Day marries Forster Batterham, an activist, and they have a daughter, Tamar. Although her husband has big plans to live outside the confines of normal society in accordance with his anarchist agenda, his desires do not supersede Day's newfound faith. She meets Sister Aloysia and decides to convert to Catholicism. In 1927 Day leaves Forster, along with her daughter, in order to pursue her her religion.
Love is the Measure
Along with a new friend, Peter Maurin, Day founds the Catholic Worker Movement. They are both former activists, but they find common ground in their religious devotion and desire for pacifism. They write a newspaper, funded by the Catholic church, which encourages readers to pursue agrarian community and to reject nationalism and violence. Especially among immigrants, the paper is widely successful. Within a few decades, the Catholic Worker Movement had developed into a full-fledge advocacy program for social welfare.
