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Abstract. In 1884, seven deaconesses from Iserlohn, Germany, came to the Philadelphia German Hospital to take over nursing care and hospital administration. This article deals with the preparation and implementation of deaconess rule at the German Hospital and conflicts during the tenure of the first two Sisters Superior, Marie Krueger (1826-1887) and Wanda von Oertzen (1845-1897). Recruitment of the deaconesses took place within a network of relations between German and American motherhouses. Before their arrival in Philadelphia, the benefactor of the German Hospital, John D. Lankenau (1817-1901), had committed himself to hospital rule by the Sister Superior. A Deaconess Committee was created to deal with the opposition of the Medical Board. Introducing deaconesses to the Philadelphia German Hospital led to a major change of medical personnel and allowed the hospital to develop a new corporate identity.
Religious women played an important role in health care during the nineteenth century. 1 On the Protestant side, the Kaiserswerth deaconess movement was the "first non-Catholic attempt to harness evangelical energy of women in a public role." 2 German pastor Theodor Fliedner (1800-1864) founded the deaconess movement in the small town of Kaiserswerth in 1836 to revive the biblical female diaconate. Nursing, though by no means the only activity of deaconesses, developed into one of their most important fields of work.
In 1849, William Alfred Passavant (1821-1894), 3 an American Lutheran minister who dedicated his life to the founding and administration of benevolent institutions, introduced deaconesses from Kaiserswerth to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He met with very limited success, however. Between 1849 and 1891, there were only about twelve consecrated deaconesses in Pittsburgh, half of whom still belonged to the Kaiserswerth Motherhouse. 4
Deaconesses were introduced to Philadelphia in 1884 with the express purpose of serving the nursing needs of the German Hospital of Philadelphia. The Philadelphia Motherhouse, founded two years later, soon became the largest motherhouse in the United States, with a maximum of 127 sisters in 1936. 5 It played a leading role as the center of the American Deaconess Movement. 6 The first deaconesses of the motherhouses in Omaha and Baltimore received their training in Philadelphia. 7 By 1899, seven Lutheran motherhouses had been established in the United States, in Philadelphia, Brooklyn, Omaha, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Baltimore, and...