The Ursulines trace their origins to the Angeline foundress Angela Merici and likewise place themselves under the patronage of Saint Ursula.

While the Ursulines took up a monastic way of life under the Rule of Saint Augustine, the Angelines operate as a secular institute.

Especially in France, groups of the company began to re-shape themselves as cloistered nuns, under solemn vows, and dedicated to the education of girls within the walls of their monasteries.

They were preceded by the Hieronymites in 1585 in Mexico City, who established the convent of San Jerónimo y Santa Paula.

[9] Their work helped to preserve a religious spirit among the French population and to evangelize native peoples of New France.

The building now houses the Archdiocese of New Orleans' Archives as well as operating as a tourist attraction/ museum with public tours available almost daily.

They may have been the first group of women propagating the ideals of diversity in a society, which flowed directly from the teachings of St Ursula and her followers.

Ursuline nuns, primarily from France and Germany, settled in other parts of North America including Boston (1820), Brown County, Ohio (1845), Cleveland (1850), New York City (1855), Louisville (1858), Chatham, Ontario (1860), and Bruno (1916) and Prelate (1919) in Saskatchewan.

These foundations spread to other parts of North America including Toledo, Youngstown, OH, Mount St. Joseph, Kentucky[14] Santa Rosa, Texas, and Mexico City.

The other branch is the Company of St. Ursula, commonly called the "Angelines", who follow the original form of life established by their foundress.

The community was made up of four Cork women – who were professed at the Ursuline Convent in the Rue St. Jacques in Paris – together with a reverend mother.

[18] At the request of James Butler, Archbishop of Cashel and Emly, Anastasia Tobin went to Cork to train as a religious.

[20] In 1839, George Joseph Plunket Browne, Bishop of Galway, brought the Ursuline Order of nuns to Dangan on the Oughterard road.

He raffled his carriage to raise funds to compensate the sisters for the financial loss they suffered by removing to Sligo.

The Ursulines merged their extension courses with Mount Saint Joseph Junior College in 1950, creating the co-educational Brescia University that remains in operation.

From 1968 to 2003 the Ursuline Order operated Ursula College at the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia.

In New York City, in 1873, James Boyce (1826–1876) invited the Ursuline nuns to found a girls' academy in St. Teresa's parish on Manhattan's Lower East Side.

The new school, called St. Teresa's Ursuline Academy, located at 137 Henry Street, was incorporated in 1881 and as of 1891 had a faculty of five sisters teaching 62 pupils.

In 1905, a news article announced plans for a twenty-four-foot wide, four-story seminary building to be built on the site to the design of architect Joseph H.

[27] The order occupied both buildings until selling them in 1912, and moving the school to the Ursuline Provinculate at Grand Boulevard and 165th Street in the Bronx, New York.

[citation needed] In the London Borough of Newham, United Kingdom, is the all-female girl school St. Angela's, named after the founder of the Ursulines.

[30] Angela de Merici inspired the Ursuline Sisters to provide young women with an opportunity to achieve their full potential.