Deaconesses in Nursing Care: International Transfer of a Female Model of Life and Work in the 19th and 20th Century ed. by Susanne Kreutzer and Karen Nolte (review)

Beginning in 1836, German Protestant deaconess motherhouses formed the foundation for the early professional nursing movement. The first model was in Kaiserswerth, Germany, founded through the vision of Theodore Fliedner and his wife, Friederike. Preparation was based on religious and practical nursing training of single women, often from the lower classes, who dedicated themselves to the deaconess communities. They sought to serve the spiritual, physical and material needs of the lower classes.

This compilation of ten essays traces the transfer of this foundational model of nursing into other parts of the world in an effort to distill the essence of what had lasting impact on nursing in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The introductory overview provides a summary of the history of the deaconess nursing movement and explains the ordering of the essays. In the Introduction the editors present the common thread of the essays, namely, the transnational approach to research. Their choice of the Protestant deaconess motherhouse is a prime example of how a concept was exported to other nations with varying success.

These essays were initially prepared for an international workshop at the Fliedner University of Applied Sciences of Düsseldorf in 2013. All are well researched and documented. Contributors are from Germany, Denmark, Israel, Finland and England.

The first three essays describe the foundation of the deaconess nursing movement. Karen Nolte provides a concise description of the philosophy and practice of the Kaiserswerth model. Annett Büttner demonstrates how deaconess nurses served with some success on the battlefield during the Danish-German War in 1864. In the third article on one of the most successful transfers of the Kaiserswerth model, Matthias Honold provides an overview of how Wilhelm Löhe in Neuendettelsau followed Fliedner's approach while modifying it with an emphasis on Christian charity.

The second section explores the development and work of deaconesses in Jerusalem in what the editors refer to as the "Outer Mission." Uwe Kaminsky writes of Fliedner's efforts to use deaconesses in caring for Christians already in the eastern Mediterranean and to recruit indigenous women to become deaconesses. The latter goal met with limited success. The Moravian deaconesses, with some roots to the Kaiserswerth community, provided another approach to nursing in Jerusalem. Ruth Wexler writes of these deaconesses, who established the Leper Home outside the old city wall beginning in 1874. Her primary sources were the 79 annual reports sent from the Leper Home to the Moravian Church's Board of Directors and membership. This mission ended in 1950, when it became too dangerous for the sisters to be there.

In the third section, Susanne Malchau Dietz and Pirjo Markkola discuss a successful transfer of the deaconess nursing movement into Scandinavia by using examples from motherhouses in Denmark and Finland. Dietz uses charts to show the number of deaconesses in Germany and those outside Germany in 1913. She explains the efforts of the Danish Deaconess Foundation to expand into the United States and their limited success. Markkola describes the ways in which Finland and Lovisenberg in Norway followed the Kaiserswerth model in developing deaconess institutes. The essay discusses the challenges of recruitment and the movement into the rural areas.

The final section addresses the limited transfer to England, Sweden and the United States. Carmen M. Mangion discusses the cultural obstacles in maintaining deaconess institutes in England. Doris Riemann writes of unique circumstances of the Lutheran motherhouse in Baltimore, Maryland, that was established by Lutherans for the needs of the church, which frequently did not align with the inner call of the deaconesses to serve body and soul. The closing chapter by Susanne Kreutzer provides a clear presentation of transnational research. Drawing from three deaconess communities located in Germany, Sweden and the United States, she illustrates the opportunities and the...