Dorothy Day: Her Life and the Influences She Made
             In our culture today we see many new forms of service, but it always seems like the same people are giving. One woman who gave all the time, influenced many people, and showed others how to love was Dorothy Day. Dorothy Day was born in Brooklyn, New York on November 8, 1897. After surviving the San Francisco earthquake in 1906, her family moved into a tenement flat in Chicago's South Side. It was a big step down in the world made necessary because Dorothy's father was out of work. It was in Chicago that Day began to form positive impressions of Catholicism. (Forest 3) Day recalled when her father was appointed sports editor of a Chicago newspaper, the Day family moved in to a comfortable house on the North Side. Here Dorothy began to read books that affected her conscience. Upon Sinclair's novel, The Jungle, inspired Day to take long walks in poor neighborhoods in Chicago's South Side. It was the start of a life-long attraction to areas many people avoid. Day won a scholarshi!
             p that brought her to the University of Illinois at Urbana in the fall of 1914. However, she was a reluctant student. Her reading was chiefly in a radical and social direction, she avoided campus social life, and insisted on supporting herself rather than living on the money from her father. (Miller 19-20)
             Dropping out of college two years later, she moved to New York where she found a job as a reporter for The Call, the city's only socialist daily. She covered rallies and demonstrations and interviewed people ranging from butlers to labor organizers and revolutionaries. She next worked for The Masses, a magazine that opposed American involvement in the European war. (Forest 6) In September, the Post Office rescinded the magazine's mailing permit. Federal officers seized back issues, manuscripts, subscriber lists and correspondence. Five editors were charged with sedition. In November 1917 Day went to pris...