Jean Pierre Medaille was a Jesuit missionary whose journeys took him through the towns and villages of south-central France in 1640-1669. The Sisters of St. Joseph trace their origin to and follow the spirit of the foundation made in LePuy-Velay, France about 1650 by Jean Pierre Medaille, SJ, with Francoise Eyraud and her five women companions, under the pastoral care of Bishop Henri de Maupas. Dedicated to "the practice of all the spiritual and corporal works of mercy of which woman is capable and which will most benefit the . . .dear neighbor." (Primitive Constitutions)

The community had a rapid growth until the time of the French Revolution when some of the convents were suppressed and the Sisters were forced to live as laypersons. Five Sisters of St. Joseph were put to death by the revolutionaries and among those imprisoned was Mother St. John Fontbonne, superior of the convent at Monistrol. She was scheduled to be executed on July 28, 1794, but was spared when Robespierre fell from power on July 27. Thirteen years later, Cardinal Fesch, Archbishop of Lyons, requested her to reestablish the community in his diocese. Through Mother St. John Fontbonne the congregation maintains continuity with the community founded by Father Medaille and officially established in LePuy by Bishop de Maupas.

The first Sisters of St. Joseph came to America from Lyons in 1836 in response to a request from Bishop Joseph Rosati for a small group of religious to open a school for the deaf in St. Louis, Missouri. Two convents were established: one in Cahokia, Illinois, which closed in 1855; the other in Carondelet, a village on the outskirts of St. Louis, where the sisters lived in a log cabin. Carondelet was destined to become the cradle of the American congregation, and the school for the deaf, which was opened in 1837, survives today in St. Joseph Institute for the Deaf, a school internationally recognized for its excellence.

The work of the sisters flourished, and their lives of commitment and dedication attracted new members eager to live in the same tradition of prayer and service they observed in this humble community from France. And although the initial work in America was education of the deaf, other works gradually developed in response to needs: health care, education at all levels, pastoral care, child care, advocacy for the poor and marginated, counseling, social services, and parish ministry, "anything of which woman is capable."