About Our Mission
Mission History
The Xavier “Free Publication” Society was founded in 1900. Our mission was envisioned by a blind teacher of blind children, Margaret Coffey, and Fr. Joseph Stadelman, SJ.
Margaret had for years and years “prayed that God would inspire some one to take pity on the Catholic blind of the country for whom there was no Catholic book to be had.” In addition to providing inspiration for Xavier Society, Margaret provided $350 of her own resources, which was the amount of money necessary to purchase a recently developed stereograph machine which could produce a larger volume of books and magazines in “raised print”, e.g braille. While not considered a significant sum today, in 1900, $350 was the equivalent of $13,000 in 2024 dollars – a very significant investment for a young blind woman.
The mission started off on 16th Street in Manhattan, in a single room at the College of St. Francis Xavier (now Xavier High School). At the time, Xavier Society was the only Catholic publishing house to make such writings available to blind people, and all services were provided free of charge, a tradition that continues to this day.
