Franciscan Sisters of Baltimore were the American members of a Roman Catholic religious congregation of women founded in the London suburb of Mill Hill, England, in 1868.
[5] The following year Vaughan received an appeal from the American Catholic bishops, resulting from their deliberations at the Tenth Provincial Council of Baltimore held in 1869.
The fifth decree of the Council called upon the bishops of the nation to provide missions and schools for all black Americans in their dioceses, as education was seen as a critical need by that population.
In 1871, Pope Pius IX granted both requests, assigning the society to serve the African-American residents of the Archdiocese of Baltimore as Apostolic Missionaries, subject directly to Rome.
[6] In 1881, five Franciscan Sisters of the Five Wounds came to the United States at the invitation of Cardinal James Gibbons, the Archbishop of Baltimore, to care for the many homeless African American children.
Their celebration was marred, however, by the recent murder of the superior of the convent which housed their retired members, MaryAnn Glinka, in a crime which shocked the people of the city.