Agnes Gertrude Regan

• Agnes Regan
• Born: March 26, 1869
• Died: September 30, 1943

Catholic social worker and educator, was born in San Francisco, the fourth of nine children and the third daughter of James Regan and Mary Ann (Morrison) Regan. James Regan, whose parents were Irish and English, had been born in Valparaiso, Chile, and was baptized Santiago del Carmen O’Regan; he emigrated to California in 1849 to work in the gold mines and changed his name. After ten years as secretary to Joseph S. Alemany, the first Roman Catholic archbishop of San Francisco, he joined his brother-in-law’s law firm and became director of the Hibernia Bank. Mary Regan’s family had emigrated from Ireland in 1847.

Agnes Regan grew up in the Western Addition section of San Francisco, in an atmosphere of warm hospitality and Catholic piety; two of her sisters entered a convent. She was educated at St. Rose Catholic Academy and San Francisco Normal School, from which she was graduated in 1887. She then began a teaching and administrative career in the city’s public-school system. From 1887 to 1900 she was an elementary-school teacher, from 1900 to 1914 a school principal, and from 1914 to 1919 a member (and occasionally the president) of the city’s Board of Education. She was a member of the San Francisco Playground Commission from 1912 to 1919. In collaboration with Governor Hiram Johnson, she helped lobby for the passage of California’s first teachers’ pension act.

In addition to her secular educational work, Regan became active in Catholic social work. She was appointed to the delegation sent by the archdiocese of San Francisco to the National Council of Catholic Women’s organizational meeting in 1920. Elected the council’s second vice president and appointed first executive secretary, she moved to Washington, D.C. to take over her new positions. The council, successor to the National Catholic War Council’s women’s committee, was (and remains) a federation of local, diocesan, and national women’s organizations working in the areas of social reform. Focusing on assistance to immigrants and working women and on health, housing, and child labor, it served as a lay Catholic coordinating center for research on social issues and deployment of resources of Catholic community groups. The organization published information on pending state and federal legislation on social welfare, and placed Catholic women in government agencies and on committees dealing with relevant issues.

Regan entered the field of Catholic welfare work in its developing phase. She traveled extensively, speaking and lecturing to clerical and lay audiences. She helped organize local Catholic women’s groups, community centers, welfare services, and training programs. She frequently appeared before state legislatures and congressional committees to lobby for such pieces of social legislation as the Sheppard-Towner Act of 1921 (which established child and maternal health care programs for the poor), a constitutional amendment prohibiting child labor, and changes in restrictive immigration laws. Regan strongly believed that Catholic women were obliged to take a driving role in American society in order to bring about change. By 1941, the year of her retirement from the council, the organization had grown into a federation of more than 3,600 women’s groups.

One major role of the council was the education and training of lay Catholic social workers. In 1918 a social-work school was established by the Rev. William J. Kerby and the Rev. John J. Burke, liberal Catholic clergymen, in Washington. After World War I they tried to bring their school under the wing of the Catholic University of America but failed because the university did not then accept laywomen. In 1921 the council opened the National Catholic Service School for Women (later to become the National Catholic School for Social Service) with a two-year postgraduate course. In 1923 the Catholic University agreed to award master’s degrees to graduates of the program. Regan had been involved in the development of the school, and in 1922 she was appointed an instructor in community organization.

Regan became assistant director of the school in 1925 and held that post until her death; from 1935 to 1937 she was acting director. She actively canvassed for funds, frequently went without her salary when money was scarce, and publicized the school’s work. Living at the school, she took charge of most of its administrative duties, while retaining her position as executive secretary of the council. The latter post was reduced to a part-time assignment in 1927.

In 1939 and 1940 Regan was a member of the White House Conference on Children in a Democracy. In addition, she was on the advisory committee of the federal Women’s Bureau and on the board of directors of the National Travelers’ Aid Society, and she worked for the American Federation of Housing Authorities and the Catholic Association for International Peace.

A devout woman, Regan received a papal decoration, the Pro Ecclesia et Pontífice award, in 1933. In 1937 she was the recipient of the Theta Phi Alpha fraternity’s first Siena medal, presented annually to an outstanding Catholic woman. She died in Washington at the age of seventy-four of hypertensive heart disease. After a mass in San Francisco Cathedral, she was buried in Holy Cross Cemetery, Daly City, California.

There is no full-length biography of Regan’s. The best full-length sketch can be found in Notable American Women (1971). See also the Dictionary of American Biography, supplement 3 (1973); L. R. Lawler, Full Circle: The Story of the National Catholic School of Social Service, 1918-1947 (1951); F. J. Broderick, Right Reverend New Dealer: John A. Ryan (1963); A. I. Abell, American Catholicism and Social Action (1960); and J. A. Ryan’s pamphlet entitled Eulogy—Agnes G. Regan (n.d.). An obituary appeared in Catholic Action, October 1943.