Its forebear, the Congregation of Sisters of Saint Joseph was started in Le Puy, France by the Jesuit Jean Pierre Médaille and accepted by the bishop, Monsignor de Maupas, on October 15, 1650.
It was revived in 1807 at Lyon, during the Napoleonic regime through the efforts of Cardinal Fesch and Mother Saint John Fontbonne.
They became a new independent diocesan congregation under the leadership of Reverend Mother Saint Benoit Cornillon and direction of Bishop Alexander Devie.
Sisters from the New Orleans group went to Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1893, where they created a boarding residence, known as the Sacred Heart Home, for young working women girls.
On November 30, 1977, Rome officially declared the three America provinces to be a new Congregation in the Church: the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Medaille.
In 1986 and in 1994 decisions were made to merge the three provinces into five regions headed by a Congregational Leadership Office composed of a president and three general councilors, in Cincinnati.
"[2] The Times-Picayune subsequently reported that the structure on Mirabeau Avenue was destroyed by a fire said by witnesses to have been caused by a lightning strike during a Summer thunderstorm.
The seven founding congregations are the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Wichita, Kansas; Cleveland, Ohio; LaGrange, Illinois; Tipton, Indiana; Nazareth, Michigan; Wheeling, West Virginia; and Medaille, with centers in Louisiana, Cincinnati and Minnesota.