Sanctified Sisters: A History of Protestant Deaconesses

The first history of the deaconess movement in the United States

In the late nineteenth century, a new movement arose within American Protestant Christianity. Unsalaried groups of women began living together, wearing plain dress, and performing nursing, teaching, and other works of welfare. Modeled after the lifestyles of Catholic nuns, these women became America’s first deaconesses.

Sanctified Sisters,the first history of the deaconess movement in the United States, traces its origins in t...