the legacy of the deaconess movement
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This presentation on the Deaconess Movement in the US was given at the Eastern Nurses Research Society (ENRS) in 2009TRANSCRIPT
The legacy of the
Deaconess movement to
American nursing
Presentation for Eastern Nurses Research Society, March 20, 2009
Session B1: Historical, Philosophy and
Theoretical Issues in Nursing Research
Christine Malmgreen, RN-BC MS MA CHES
Purpose: Research roots of nursing practice interventions to enhance health
of individuals and communities
Historical antecedents of Parish Nursing
The 19th century Deaconess Movement emanated from Germany to America
in 1849
A 19th Century “movement”
In search of our
Heritage
The deaconesses are buried in Philadelphia's historic Woodlands
Cemetery in what is known as the "Nurses Corner” SOURCE: http://www.aahn.org/gravesites/deaconess.html
Mark Concepcion and Edward Chen
Nurse-deaconesses
Brought nursing interventions– Through healing institutions
within the community
Intrepid 19th century women,
• progenitors of:– Hospital nursing schools– settlement houses– community health nursing organizations
Deaconess Susan Trevor Knapp
(1903)
Dean, New York Training School
The “how”-Primary Sources
• Archival records-Philadelphia’s Lutheran Deaconess Home – Sr Magdalene’s reminiscences
– Pittsburg Infirmary Annual Reports
• Women’s Home Missionary Society annual reports of the Methodist Episcopal Church
• Methodist Hospital of Brooklyn, archives
• Lutheran Medical Center- Norwegian Relief Society Annual reports
Sister Elizabeth Fedde’s diary (translated)
•AJN from 1900-1915
Nursing historians
– Dock
– Doyle
– Wald
– Goodnow
– Goodrich
– Woolsey
Religious writers of a century ago ~Primary and secondary sources
(Male)
– Wentz– Wheeler– Passavant– Buckley – Bachmann– Goldner – Fritschel – Wentz (Fliedner biographer)
(Female)
– Bancroft-Robinson– Rider-Meyer– Tomkinson– Ochse
Secondary sourcesproviding supporting evidence
Social historians
– Welter*– Reverby– Melosh– Smith-Rosenberg– Rosenberg– Dougherty
• Medical historians
– Vogel -Susser– Illich -Rosner– Berlinger– Starr
–Welter*
Organizing Framework
The Cult of True Womanhood• Attributes/four cardinal virtues:
– Piety– Purity– Submissiveness– Domesticity
• Welter, B. (1966). The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820-1860 American Quarterly, 18 (2) Part 1 pp. 151-174
Deaconess Elizabeth Ferard, first Deaconess in the Anglican Communion (England)
–Domesticity
The “Cult”• Metaphor for separate
“sphere” of womanhood
Barbara Welter – reinforced centrality of
“separate spheres”
• “A stereotype so encouraging yet, constraining…”
• Commentary –Kerber, L. (1997). Toward an Intellectual History of Women - Essays
Woman’s greatest task ~ care for the home
• CONTEMORARY
POPULAR
LITERATURE– The Young
Ladies Class Book
Domesticity• Women in the home
• Housework - “uplifting”
• Quote from contemporary source, women’s magazine:
"The science of housekeeping affords exercise for the judgment and energy, ready
recollection, and patient self-possession, that are the characteristics of a superior
mind”
• Making beds-good exercise!
Woman’s most important function ~NURSING
“Enough illnesses… to give 19th century American woman nursing experience”
• Call of the sickroom
– Patience– Mercy– Gentleness
• Welter (1987)
Perfection of True Womanhood “trained to believe”
…carried the seeds of its own destruction
If woman were so very little less than the angels, should she take a more active part
in running the world? (especially since men were making such a hash of
things)
Beautiful and useful!
Kaiserswerth, the first deaconess home, Germany, 1836
Domesticity and woman as “nurse”
Theodore Fliedner, 1836
First wife, Fredrike Munster
Fliedner
(died, 1846)
Women of Kaiserswerth
Sister Gertrude Reichardt, First deaconess, 1836
The second Mrs Fliedner- Caroline Bertheau Fliedner
Nurses at Kaiserswerth
Visited Kaiserswerth, 1900
3 month stay at Kaiserswerth, 1850
Lavinia Dock
But he doesn’t come alone
1849Fliedner comes to America
Sister Elizabeth Hupperts
with three deaconesses who accompanied her and Pastor Fliedner to Pittsburgh in 1849
The deaconess movement comes to America
The first American Deaconess
Katherine Louise Martens, The first Deaconess consecrated on American soil (1851)
Deaconess Nurses ~ end of century
1840s ~ Episcopals-1st American diaconate
1849 ~ Lutherans initiate 1st Motherhouse
1883-1900 ~ More European deaconesses
1886-1915 Methodist Women’s Home
Missionary society takes up the cause
1873 ~“Trained nursing” –first 3 training
schools on the “Nightingale model”
•1883-Elizabeth Fedde, Norwegian Lutheran nurse-Deaconess come from Oslo Norway comes to Brooklyn, NY
•1884-Seven sisters from an independent group of deaconesses from Iserlon Wesphalia, Germany come to Philadelphia
Sister Elizabeth
…sent to Brooklyn?
Norwegian Lutheran
Deaconess missionary…
“Where ever she hears of cases of misery, poverty or
degradation…
she [Sr Elizabeth] goes to see the sufferers and ministers to their wants, either of body or soul. Her character and work are already
so well know and appreciated among the poor Norwegians that they are constantly
sending for her” (Norwegian Relief Society annual report, 1885).
Norwegian Lutheran Deaconess Hospital in
Brooklyn, NY
Sister Elizabeth Fedde found so much need in homes, hospitals, ships in the harbor, and even the streets that by 1886 she started a deaconess hospital.
The German (deaconess) hospital, Philadelphia, Pa
Later renamed, LANKANAU HOSPITAL”
“…nothing short of transplanting the blessed sisterhood of the
diaconate to this country”-John D. Lankenau
John Lankanau and the deaconesses
The Mary Drexel Deaconess Home in Philadelphia
Domesticity Woman as
guardian of public hearth
The Motherhousea woman home
Pre-1849-Nuns in com-munity
1883-1903Proliferation of
Motherhouses by Lutherans and Methodists
1883-4: Diaconates established in Philadelphia & Brooklyn
1849Deaconesses
arrive-development of new model of
nursing & sisterhood
1889-1930: Secular settlement houses
1873-1883: nursing schools grow within
hospitals (22)
1836
1936
1886 Methodist Episcopal church joins
the Movement
The evolution of a movement from an ideology
Bethany Deaconess Home and Hospital ~ 1893
Vision for Community Health Nursing
• Another gift from the
Motherhouse
• Harbinger of the “woman’s”
professions
• Protestant sisterhoods living
and working in community
• Secular women in Settlement houses
The Methodist Episcopal Deaconess Movement
• “Serving to preserve the community’s hearth & health” (Annual Reports)
• Used ideology of “Home and Hearth” as justification to go Public Hearth for the betterment of society
METHODIST EPISCOPAL GENERAL CONFERENCE
Lucy Rider MeyerChicago, Ill
WOMAN’S HOME MISSIONARY SOCIETYJane Bancroft Robinson
Washington, DC
Conclusion
• Domesticity facilitated– “Breaking free of the
bonds of household drudgery”
• Replacing it with PROFESSIONALISM
• A satisfaction in “making a difference”
• Hospital-based and community health nursing flourished
• Parish Nursing a blooming flower ~