Abstract

Established by the Lutheran General Synod in 1895, the Baltimore Lutheran Deaconess Motherhouse and Training School offered a unique women's ministry in America. Lutheran women trained as deaconess nurses joined other women religious, social reformers, and urban progressives in addressing the overwhelming needs of vast numbers of immigrants and rural Americans challenged by poverty and disease that resulted from increased immigration, industrialization, and overcrowding in the 1890s.

The purpose of this research was to identify, describe, and analyze the history of the Baltimore Lutheran deaconess nurses between 1893 and 1911. Using traditional historical methods and a social history framework, the research placed the Lutheran deaconesses within the larger social context of labor, politics, economics, religion, and home life with a special focus on the influence of gender to role definition and the deaconess work. Primary sources were obtained from the archival collections of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America in Elk Grove Village, Illinois, and the Wentz Library of the Lutheran Seminary of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania.

Description

This dissertation has also been disseminated through the ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database. Dissertation/thesis number: 3436021; ProQuest document ID: 816858914. The author still retains copyright.

Author Details

Lisa M. Zerull, PhD, Assistant Professor

Sigma Membership

Rho Pi

Lead Author Affiliation

Shepherd University, Shepherdstown, West Virginia, USA

Type

Dissertation

Format Type

Text-based Document

Study Design/Type

Historical

Research Approach

N/A

Keywords:

Parish Nursing Work, Spiritual Care, Physical and Social Care

Advisor

Arlene W. Keeling

Second Advisor

Barbara M. Brodie

Third Advisor

Heather A. Warren

Fourth Advisor

John C. Kirchgessner

Degree

PhD

Degree Grantor

University of Virginia

Degree Year

2010

Rights Holder

All rights reserved by the author(s) and/or publisher(s) listed in this item record unless relinquished in whole or part by a rights notation or a Creative Commons License present in this item record.

All permission requests should be directed accordingly and not to the Sigma Repository.

All submitting authors or publishers have affirmed that when using material in their work where they do not own copyright, they have obtained permission of the copyright holder prior to submission and the rights holder has been acknowledged as necessary.

Review Type

None: Degree-based Submission

Acquisition

Proxy-submission

Date of Issue

2022-11-02

Full Text of Presentation

wf_yes

Download

Share

COinS