Women care for women
Following the dissolution of a great number of monasteries, women who had been employed in the field of medicine began to fill the role of deaconesses. This ancient role, recorded in the New Testament, saw somewhat of a renaissance in the early 1800s in Western Europe. Deaconesses were responsible for providing assistance to other women, namely in the form of education and preparation for marriage and childrearing.
After a very short period, the idea spread from Germany to England, Scandinavia, and eventually to the United States. By the beginning of the 20th century, the United States had a total of 62 schools that provided instruction for deaconesses. As the women’s rights movement gathered momentum, fewer women chose to enrol in deaconess schools rather than going to nursing school or state college instead. This led to a fall in enrollment at these institutions.