John Lancaster Spalding (June 2, 1840 – August 25, 1916) was an American Catholic author, poet, advocate for higher education, the first Bishop of Peoria from 1877 to 1908.

[2] His uncle, Martin Spalding, was bishop of Louisville,[3] and arranged for him to attend the American College of the Immaculate Conception in Louvain, Belgium.

[6] In 1876, six Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis, at the request of Reverend Bernard Baak, pastor of St. Joseph, arrived from Iowa City to care for the sick.

Shortly after their arrival, Spalding visited the hospital and observing the difficult conditions the sisters worked under, encouraged them to form a separate congregation with his support.

[9] Spalding achieved national prominence for helping President Theodore Roosevelt and banker J. P. Morgan to end the Great Coal Strike of 1902 as a member of the Arbitration Commission that awarded the miners a retroactive 10% wage increase and reduced daily work hours from 10 to 9.

Anticipating long and fruitless discussion, Spalding dispensed with procedure and sent the draft to Archbishop James Gibbons, indicating that he had made suggested changes where appropriate.

Cardinal John McCloskey of New York gave it the imprimatur, Gibbons approved the text, and it was published in April 1885.

He opposed government interference in education and urged Catholics to support a parochial school system without seeking public financing.

Under the terms of his will, he subsidized ten places in the Richmond home for poor individuals of Fredericksburg; He also stipulated that upon reaching the age of twenty-one, his daughters were to donate one-third of their substantial inheritance to establish a Catholic university.

[17][18] When Mary Guendaline was 21, she gave the money to buy the land for Catholic University and to build Caldwell Hall, which was named after her.

Mary Elizabeth married Baron Moritz Curt von Zedtwitz (1851–1896),[15] German Minister to Mexico, and converted to Lutheranism.

According to the New York Times, her actions provoked little surprise as she was in poor health having suffered a stroke two years earlier and "[t]he Marquise is an original character and extremely impulsive.

In 1906, Mary Elizabeth's book, The Double Doctrine of Rome, in which she takes issue with "Popery", its beliefs, and practices, was published.