Appalachia Health Care: The Grace Hospital School Of Nursing

ASU Author/Contributor (non-ASU co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
Phoebe Ann Pollitt PhD, Associate Professor (Creator)
Institution
Appalachian State University (ASU )
Web Site: https://library.appstate.edu/

Abstract: After the Civil War and Recontruction, the South was in chaos. The economy was in a shambles and many social institutions had been destroyed. The task of rebuilding society frequently fell to the churches. Many Protestant denominations sent mission workers, money, and supplies to help "uplift" impoverished communities. Between 1885 and 1895 the Presbyterians organized thirty-one schools in the Appalachian Mountains. In 1885 the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A., home missions board mentioned the mountaineers specifically in its annual report to the General Assembly: Among Presbyterians, religion and knowledge go hand in hand; churches and schools supplement and assist each other .... The Presbyterian Church does not prosper in ignorance or illiteracy. In pushing our missionary work into the South, we have struck another great mass of illiteracy, this time among the whites .... The census tells the story .... These hardy mountaineers are eager for schools .... The first expressed want is an academy-and perhaps they are quite right, for if universal education is to be introduced in their States, as the common school system is in some other states, the first want is the education of their sons and daughters that they may become teachers. Nestled in a picturesque valley in the Blue Ridge mountains of North Carolina lies the small town of Banner Elk. This once remote Appalachian community is the home of major and ongoing missions of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Three church related institutions - LeesĀ­-McRae College, Grandfather Home and Orphanage, and Grace (now Cannon) Hospital-were established around the turn of the century, primarily through the efforts of the Presbyterian Church, U.S., and the Reverend Edgar Tufts.

Additional Information

Publication
Phoebe Ann Pollitt and Kathy McNeely Moore (1992). Appalachia Health Care: The Grace Hospital School of Nursing. American Presbyterians Vol. 70, No. 4 (WINTER 1992), pp. 239-246. Publisher version of record available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23332618
Language: English
Date: 1992
Keywords
Appalachia, Health Care, Grace Hospital School of Nursing, Public Health, Lees-McRae College, Grandfather Home, Cannon Hospital

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