FAIRVIEW DEACONESS HOSPITAL SCHOOL OF NURSING:

The roots of the Fairview Deaconess Hospital and its nursing program go back to the 1888 establishment of a deaconess home on Hennepin Avenue by Sister Elizabeth Fedde, following a meeting of the General Council of the Norwegian Lutheran Church (later the American Lutheran Church) in Minneapolis. In 1891 the first permanent home was established at 417 East 23rd Street, which became known as the Deaconess Home and Hospital. Thereafter the facility was operated under the overall leadership of a rector, with a deaconess serving as superintendent of the hospital and a sister superior directing the home.

A new 90-bed hospital (24th Street and 15th Avenue) was dedicated in 1910, and in 1916 the training school for nurses was established, superceding the deaconess training program. The following year Bergh Hall, a dormitory to house 40 student nurses, was completed. In 1920 the institution was renamed Lutheran Deaconess Hospital (LDH), and both its physical plant and its programs continued growing over the following decades. A new nursing school and dormitory--Bergeland Hall--was dedicated in 1967, and in 1968 the positions of nursing school director and nursing services director were split.

In 1973 LDH formally consolidated its programs with Fairview and Fairview-Southdale hospitals, the merged entity becoming known as Fairview Community Hospitals and, in 1981, LDH was renamed Fairview Deaconess Hospital (FDH). The School of Nursing graduated its final class in 1987.

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Minutes (1888-1986) of the board and several subunits, some correspondence, scrapbooks (1939-1972), photographs, miscellaneous financial and patient information, newspaper clippings, and printed material relating to the nursing program of a hospital founded in 1888 by the Deaconess Society of the Norwegian Lutheran Church.

The records document nurses' training, their service in World War II, and their social activities; patient care and the analysis of hospital services; and the role of religion in a hospital operation.

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These documents are organized into the following sections:

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Availability:

The collection is open for research use.

Preferred Citation:

[Indicate the cited item and/or series here]. Fairview Deaconess Hospital (Minneapolis, Minn.). School of Nursing Records. Minnesota Historical Society.

See the Chicago Manual of Style for additional examples

Accession Information:

Accession number: 13,851; 13,868; 14,766

Processing Information:

Processed by: Bonnie Beatson Palmquist, August 1992

Catalog ID number: 990017287370104294

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Related materials: Minnesota Board of Nursing. Nursing education program files (closed), in the Minnesota State Archives, include files on the Fairview Deaconess Hospital nursing school.

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This collection is indexed under the following headings in the catalog of the Minnesota Historical Society. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons or places should search the catalog using these headings.

Topics:

Hospital patients -- Minnesota -- Minneapolis -- Registers.

Hospitals -- Minnesota -- Minneapolis.

Lutheran Church -- Hospitals -- Minnesota -- Minneapolis.

Military nursing -- Minnesota -- Minneapolis.

Nursing schools -- Minnesota -- Minneapolis.

Nursing students -- Minnesota -- Minneapolis.

Women in the Lutheran Church -- Minnesota -- Minneapolis.

Nursing -- Minnesota -- Minneapolis -- Study and teaching.

Organizations:

Lutheran Deaconess Hospital (Minneapolis, Minn.).

Document Types:

Photographs.

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