ABSTRACT
As a young heiress, Katharine Drexel was not sheltered from the unjust treatment of minorities in the United States and the difficulties they faced. As a result of her awareness early on, Drexel promised to help minorities, specifically Native Americans and “colored” or African Americans (to use the language of Katharine’s times). With her inheritance monies, she dedicated her wealth to philanthropy and entered a newfound religious calling in 1889. Through the use of transformational leadership as identified by Burns and expanded upon by Bass, Drexel stepped away from traditional familial and gendered expectations of followership to change the lives of Native Americans and African Americans through both self-sacrifice and her actions as a moral agent. By mobilizing followers instead of simply remaining a follower, she established schools, facilitated missionary work and founded the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament. Katharine Drexel ersonally funded a majority of her projects, donating roughly twenty million dollars. At her death in 1955, Drexel had upwards of five hundred followers, and measured her legacy by the sixty-one schools and one hundred forty-five missions opened. Katharine Drexel exemplifies transformational action via the impact of her leadership in giving and in action on generations of Native Americans and African Americans.
