Catholic Worker House

Category: Friends of Labor

The Saint Joseph House of Hospitality was founded at this site in 1941 to provide food, clothing and shelter to those in need. St. Joe's grew out of a Catholic Worker study group established in Rochester in 1933, the same year that Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin began the Catholic Worker movement in New York City. From its inception the movement, through its nationally-distributed Catholic Worker newspaper (with a subscription rate of "1 cent a year"), participation in demonstrations and the efforts of its Catholic Worker Houses, has protested the injustices of the capitalist system and sided with the cause of workers. During
Rochester’s 1946 general strike, Thomas F. Scahill, financial secretary of the local Catholic Worker Group, wrote to the Democrat & Chronicle supporting "the right of any worker to organize and bargain collectively." The movement has no overall plan for social change, but asks members to take personal responsibility for changing society and making the world a better place.