It was founded in 1861 by three sisters of the Benedictine congregation of Mount St. Benedict Monastery in Erie, Pennsylvania, who came to Chicago to teach the German-speaking children of St. Joseph's parish.

In 1852, Benedictine Mother Benedicta Riepp and two sisters left St. Walburga Abbey in Eichstätt, in the Kingdom of Bavaria to establish St. Joseph Monastery in Marienstadt in Elk County, Pennsylvania.

[1] Sisters from Mount St. Benedict Monastery in Erie, Pennsylvania came to Chicago at the request of fellow Benedictine Louis Mary Fink, future bishop of Leavenworth, Kansas.

A monk from the Monastery of Saint Vincent in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, Father Fink had previously served as pastor in Covington, Kentucky where two years before he had obtained sisters from Erie to staff St. Joseph's parochial school.

Assigned as a pastor in Chicago, he again had recourse to the Benedictine Sisters of Erie to teach the German-speaking children in his new parish of St. Joseph.

St. Scholastica Academy in Canon City served as a day and boarding school for young women from 1890 until it closed in 2001.

The Academy, originally called St. Joseph's, opened in 1865 in the convent of the sisters, who also taught at the parish school.

The academy enrolled young women from diverse economic, religious, racial and ethnic backgrounds throughout the Chicago metropolitan area.

It was announced on March 14, 2012, that due to declining enrollment, SSA would close its doors at the end of the 2012–2013 school year.