Our Mission
The Claretian Missionaries Archives is the official repository of all materials which pertain to the origin, history, development, and mission of the Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary of the United States and Canada. The goal of the Archives is to centralize, organize, preserve, protect, and make available these records to members of the province and scholars. The Archives serves as the repository of non-current records. The role of the archivists is to intellectually control, make accessible, and ensure the integrity of the records deposited in the repository.
The Archives is part of the Chicago Archive Collaborative formed in 2009 to provide archives a cooperative area to manage their collections. The Cenacle Sisters Archives of North America joined the Claretians in forming the collaborative. In 2014, the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago Archives became the third partner in the joint archives. Although each collection is managed and housed separately, the staff share a processing area and reading room.
Archives
The USA-Canada Province Archives focuses on six major areas:
Life, work, and legacy of Saint Anthony Mary Claret and General Government documents and publications.
Claretian Missionaries USA-Canada Province, history, governance, personnel, and ministry records.
Claretian Publications archives including digital and analog materials.
The Saint Jude devotion initiated in the United States by the Claretian Missionaries in February 1929 and the Saint Jude League responsible for promoting the “Saint of Hopeless Cases.”
Radio Claret America, established in 2014 as internet radio station materials.
Claretian initiated community organizations and projects. These are housed as separate collections.
The Archives utilizes two different content management programs, Access to Memory (AtoM) for the manuscript collection and CONTENTdm for selected digital materials. These collections may be queried according to name, place, keyword, or subject. Both employ the Library of Congress Subject Headings for faceted searches.
