Franziskanische Forschungen – serie

Franciscan and Elizabethan women’s religious communities played a significant role in the development of inpatient nursing care. This study examines this phenomenon using the example of ten congregations, from the opening of the first hospitals in the 1840s through 1930. At the turn of the century, these communities were active in 290 facilities in Germany; by 1930, another 51 had been added; many of which they owned. The author examines industrialization, military hospitals, and epidemics as driving forces behind the fundamental transformation of nursing, and then explores the relationship between the secular and the religious in everyday nursing practice, the professionalization of nursing, and the management and financing of these institutions. Contrary to common portrayals, in which priests and doctors dominate the narrative, she demonstrates that and how the mother superiors and sisters played a decisive role in shaping the establishment of inpatient nursing care. The sisters also demonstrated modernity and mobility through their work abroad, where they founded and operated 90 facilities in Europe, as well as in America and China.