They adopted for their habit a black dress, cape, and bonnet, patterned after the widows weeds of women in Italy whom Elizabeth had encountered there.

[3] In 1810 Bishop Benedict Joseph Flaget was able to obtain from France a copy of the rules of the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul.

The story of the Canadian foundation begins when four American ladies, black-robed, black-capped, landed in Halifax from the Cunard liner "Cambria" on May 11, 1849.

"[8] Sister Mary Rose McAleer and two novices began teaching girls in St. Patrick's Parish in the North end of the city.

When St Patrick’s moved to larger quarters in 1888, the former convent was converted into a refuge for unmarried mothers and their babies, named the Home of the Guardian Angel.

[9] In 1866 victims of cholera were landed from an immigrant ship on McNab's Island in the harbour and when the Archbishop asked for helpers, all the Sisters volunteered.

Sisters from the order first came to Boston, Massachusetts, in August 1887, called to staff a new school for girls at St. Patrick’s Parish in Roxbury.

A long tradition ended in 2006 when Sister Sheilagh Martin, a biology professor, retired as the last member of the congregation to teach there.

On April 30, 1880, Leo XIII issued a document removing from the Archbishop of Halifax "any jurisdiction" he had held over the Sisters of Charity, and placing the Congregation under the Pope's immediate control.

[11] From its opening in 1929 to its closing in 1967, the Sisters of Charity operated the Shubenacadie Indian Residential School, the grounds of which were designated by Parks Canada a national historic site based on its history of widespread sexual, physical and psychological abuse of indigenous children.

In 2021 the Sisters of Charity posted an apology on their website, but refused to answer questions about the school or allow access to their archives.

[13] The areas of education, health care, pastoral ministry, and social services are still paramount, though the ways in which the sisters work within a given field has changed.

Two growing interests for the order are ecological projects and helping victims of human trafficking, issues they are working on with the Leadership Conference of Women Religious.