Ducournau Archives: Mission Statement

The Ducournau Archives of the Eastern Province of the Congregation of the Mission plays a vital role in supporting current Provincial apostolates and maintaining a continuity with the past, present, and future apostolates of the Province.

Its mission is to collect, organize and preserve, and make available for research the official records of the Eastern Province of the Congregation of the Mission (1888 —) and those ancillary records and documents which pertain to its status within the worldwide Congregation of the Mission (1625 —) and the Vincentian Community in the United States (1816 —). It serves the members of the Vincentian Community and those qualified researchers outside the Community who have an interest in Vincentian history.

The name for the archives was chosen to memorialize Bro. Bertrand Ducournau, C.M., the first secretary of St. Vincent de Paul. To this good Brother is owed much of what is extant of the charism left us by St. Vincent.

As we begin to occupy this established place on the Provincial website, we enter a new stage of our development. Our hope is:

1. To give new life to the thousands of pages of documents that are stored in countless numbers of archival boxes;
2. To present online exhibitions of various historical events and/or themes of interest.

Ms. Honey Jane Rodgers, Associate Archivist
Rev. John W. Carven, C.M., Provincial Archivist Emeritus