Susanne Kreutzer, University of Osnabrueck, Germany
Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing, University of Pennsylvania
Time: 12:00-1:30 p.m.
Place: Claire Fagin Hall, Room 435
Abstract: The seminar will explore two very dissimilar nursing traditions of West Germany and the United States. In Germany, the denominational motherhouse system took root in the nineteenth century and became the main form of organized nursing. Right up to the 1960s the Christian model of nursing as an altruistic act of charity toward fellow human beings shaped the West German nursing history, and nursing was primarily learned while practicing it. In the United States, by contrast, a professional strategy emphasizing efficiency, standardization, and scientific management began to characterize the development of nursing as early as the beginning of the twentieth century.
The seminar inquires into the factors determining this divergent course of development, focusing on two different groups of nurses, first of all the protestant deaconess motherhouses in Germany and the United States and secondly the women in each country who played a lead role in the professionalization of nursing. Priority is given to the period after 1945 when healthcare was becoming more and more specialized, scientific, economized and technical.
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