Provincial motherhouse in Reading, Pennsylvania, established in the United States in 1894. The congregation was founded in Cracow, Poland, in 1457, when a group of tertiaries, of the nobility, formed an active community of the Third Order Regular of St. Francis in St. Agnes Convent. Because these Franciscan Sisters attended Mass in a church dedicated to the then recently canonized St. Bernardine of Siena, they became known as the Bernardines. From the Convent of St. Agnes a new foundation, that of St. Joseph, was established in the same city in 1646; St. Joseph Convent gave rise to the Sacred Heart Convent, which was founded at Zakliczyn-on the-Danube in 1883. From there, the Bernardine sisters came to the United States, when they were sent to minister to the Polish immigrants at St. Joseph School in Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania. Shortly thereafter, in 1895, they moved to Reading to teach at St. Mary's School. It was in Reading that the motherhouse was built.