Sisters’ Hospital, Gardens, Best & Co., c.1890, Courtesy Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection
Daughters of Charity trained student nurses on their duties, including meal service. c 1901. Courtesy St. Vincent Medical Center Historical Conservancy, Los Angeles.
Overview
Committed to serving those struggling in poverty, the Daughters of Charity played a significant role in the development of hospital care in Los Angeles. These Catholic sisters adjusted to rapidly changing conditions in the medical marketplace as the city grew from a dusty frontier town into a bustling metropolis by the 1920s.
To maintain the vitality of their institution without compromising their faith-based mission to care for those in need, the Daughters expanded their facilities, adopted new technology, and introduced structured nursing education. Throughout, these sisters confronted the obstacles of culture, religion, class, and scarce resources. Responding with flexibility and an inclusive ethos of care, the Daughters offered an alternative to the divisiveness that plagued urban centers in the region.
“Gunnell’s narrative provides a rare view of both the individual accomplishments and struggles of the sisters, and the ties that bound the women together into a single sisterhood over the decades.”
—Sioban Nelson. Catholic Historical Review (Summer 2015)
Reviews
“The book enhances our understanding of the genre of the New Western History by integrating religion, gender, nursing, medicine and work in the social history of the American West.”
—Barbra Mann Wall , Church History (September 2015)
Arrival in Los Angeles
On January 6, 1856, six Daughters of Charity arrived in the plaza in Los Angeles. Invited by Bishop Thaddeus Amat, the sisters intended to start an orphanage and school. However, the Daughters quickly learned of a pressing need to care for the sick in the community. While Sister Scholastica Logsdon (1814-1902) and Sister Corsina McKay (1810-1888) focused on the orphanage and school, Sister Ann Gillen (1818-1902) opened a separate nursing facility in 1858, known as the Los Angeles Infirmary.
Institución Caritativa, Sisters of Charity School, or Los Angeles Charitable Institute, c. 1858. Courtesy St. Vincent Medical Center Historical Conservancy, Los Angeles.
The history of the Los Angeles Infirmary offers a rare opportunity to examine the relationship between faith-based institutions and the state in the mid-nineteenth century, thereby illustrating the foundations of a struggle that is still relevant in American society today.
In October 1858, Sister Scholastica purchased the home of John. D. Moran and moved the Los Angeles Infirmary from a rented adobe “north of the church.” Adjacent to the orphanage, the facility was more convenient for the sisters, had better access to water, and better living conditions for their patients. Courtesy of St. Vincent Medical Center Historical Conservancy, Los Angeles.
The City's First Hospital
As the first hospital in the city, the Los Angeles Infirmary offered shelter, food, and nursing care to the sick regardless of race, religion, or the ability to pay.
Between 1858 and 1878, the Daughters of Charity collaborated with city and county officials to provide hospital care for those in need, receiving as little as 75 cents per patient per day for their services. Deemed suitable caretakers by both English-speaking and Spanish-Speaking Angelenos, the Daughters of Charity eased the town’s transition to supporting governmental forms of charitable relief.
Instead of perpetuating derogatory stereotypes of the poor based on ethnic or religious differences, the Daughters offered an alternative model of dignified care for body and soul.
Cultural Intermediaries
As they advocated for quality and compassionate care for poor persons, the Daughters positioned themselves as intermediaries between individuals from different cultures and classes. Seeking support for their work, the American and Spanish sisters built relationships with the Californio-Mexican elite, as well as the French, German, Irish, and American merchants who dominated frontier society. The hospital was also open to poor persons of all nationalities, including Mexicans and Native Americans who rarely received equal treatment in the aftermath of American conquest.
An unnamed sister-nurse at the Los Angeles Infirmary, c. 1870. As scientific medicine became more influential, sister-nurses wore white habits to reinforce the high levels of cleanliness and professionalism maintained at the hospital. Courtesy of St. Vincent Medical Center Historical Conservancy, Los Angeles.
In the 1870s, the Daughters resisted the efforts of city boosters who sought to “Americanize” Los Angeles by importing eastern welfare systems that rarely treated poor persons with compassion or respect.
In 1861, the Daughters purchased a large home from the heirs of Herman C. Cardwell on the road to San Gabriel” for use as a hospital., later known as Naud Street and then San Fernando Street. Courtesy of St. Vincent Medical Center Historical Conservancy, Los Angeles.
Tensions
As the city grew, boosters wanted to build a new hospital and farm, modeled after East-Coast almshouses which required patients to work for their care. The Daughters opposed these efforts, but worsening economic conditions further strained their relationship with the county.
By 1878, the lingering effects of nation’s economic panic increased the demand for care at the same time that tax revenue decreased. Rising costs opened the sisters up criticism that they treated charity patients “too well.” These tensions led to a dissolution of the Daughters’ partnership with the county and the sisters looked for new ways to fund their charitable mission to care for the sick poor.
The Daughters shifted their focus to the private medical marketplace in the 1880s and reinvented the institution as a modern charity hospital, a scientific institution that incorporated a religious mission.
A New Sisters' Hospital
In 1884, the Daughters began the construction of a new 100-bed hospital near Sunset and Beaudry Avenues. Although still incorporated as the Los Angeles Infirmary, it was commonly called “Sisters’ Hospital.”
By building a state-of-the-art facility, the Daughters hoped to attract physicians and their private patients to the hospital. They then used private patient fees to subsidize charitable care.
In 1883, the Daughters purchased “Beaudry Park,” a nine-acre plot of scenic land for the construction of a new hospital. Courtesy of St. Vincent Medical Center Historical Conservancy Los Angeles.
The Daughters adopted new financial strategies to maintain their mission. They used private patient fees and corporate contracts to ensure the hospital’s economic stability, while continuing to serve patients regardless of race, religion, or ability to pay.
The Los Angeles County Railroad engine Ivanhoe, stopped at Sisters’ Hospital on Sunset Boulevard, c. 1887. California Historical Society Collection. Courtesy of University of Southern California, on behalf of the USC Libraries Special Collections. https://digitallibrary.usc.edu/asset-management/2A3BF1KYXNO
Railroad Contracts
Railroads pioneered payroll-deducted corporate health plans in the United States, laying the foundation for the further development of private health insurance in the twentieth century. In Los Angeles, the Daughters contracted with railroad companies to treat their sick and injured workers. As many of these workers hailed from struggling immigrant communities, the contracts offered the sisters a measure of financial security while they continued to serve those in need.
By continually updating their facilities, the Daughters sought to maintain their historic position in–and continued relevance to–the medical community in Los Angeles.
The Annex
In 1902, the Daughters built “the annex,” essentially another six-story, hotel-style hospital adjacent to the 1884 building. It more than doubled the hospital’s capacity and increased its bedspace from 100 to 250 patients, including as many as fifty private rooms. Thoroughly modern by the standards of the day, it also included an additional operating room, x-ray diagnostic equipment, steam heat, electric lights, and laboratory space.
1902 “Annex” on Sunset Boulevard. Courtesy of St. Vincent Medical Center Historical Conservancy, Los Angeles.
Operating Room, c. 1904. Courtesy of St. Vincent Medical Center Historical Conservancy, Los Angeles.
Promoting Scientific Medicine and Catholic Values
Increasingly, hospitals relied on surgeries and other medical procedures to bolster their reputations as modern scientific institutions. Sisters supervised operating rooms to ensure that physicians did not conduct any procedures that contradicted the teachings of the Catholic Church.
By the twentieth century, a nursing school allowed Sisters’ hospital to serve more patients, reduced its labor costs, and furthered the Daughters’ ability to subsidize charity care.
Nursing School
While the Daughters continued to supervise the floors and direct the hospital’s administration, they started a nursing school in 1898. Besides reducing labor costs, nursing schools fostered women’s economic self-sufficiency at a time when they had few career opportunities. They also offered the sisters a chance to identify those who might be interested in joining their religious community.
Classroom, St. Vincent Hospital School of Nurses, c. 1920. Courtesy of St. Vincent Medical Center Historical Conservancy, Los Angeles.
Despite the growing importance of technology and increased reliance on private patients, the Daughters of Charity continued “their primary and principal duty” to serve the sick poor.
Sisters’ Hospital Free Clinic, Beaudry and Sunset site, c. 1905. Courtesy of St. Vincent Medical Center Historical Conservancy, Los Angeles.
Charity Care
Embedded in the communities they served, the Daughters remained attentive to the needs of those who lived in the neighborhoods surrounding the hospital. As their time and resources allowed, they visited the sick in their homes and offered food, clothing, or other material aid as needed. Between 1913 and 1930, the sisters reported assisting an average of 1490 individuals a year, in addition to those receiving medical care at the hospital.
The Daughters also operated two outpatient clinics on the hospital grounds, where physicians volunteered their time and patients could receive medicine at a reduced rate. For those requiring in-patient care, the Daughters offered flexibility for those who could not pay their entire bill. During the Influenza Epidemic of 1918 and 1919, ten percent of patients received free care.
“A Monument to Christian Charity”—Bishop John J. Cantwell, 1927
St Vincent's Hospital
Responding to the city’s explosive growth and increased competition among religious hospitals, the Daughters opened a new facility on November 25, 1927. Named St. Vincent’s Hospital, the facility evoked images of modernity. It included four floors of private rooms, maternity ward, hydrotherapy treatment center, an aseptic operating room with separate viewing area, radiograph, x-ray, and bacteriology labs.
Yet, the new hospital served as a means to continue their mission as the Daughters continued to care for an average of fifteen charity patients each day.
St. Vincent’s Hospital, located on Alvarado and Oceanview Avenues, c. 1927. Courtesy of St. Vincent Medical Center Historical Conservancy, Los Angeles.
Overall, Daughters of Charity demonstrates the adaptability of these Roman Catholic sisters as they adjusted their services both to the demands of the modernizing medical marketplace and to the changing needs of the sick poor in Los Angeles. The Daughters of Charity developed innovative strategies to sustain their institution without compromising their spiritual values.
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