Addressing silent distress: deaconess institutes acquiring expertise on intellectual disabilities in Finland in the early twentieth century

The formation of new nation-states after the Great War transformed societies and provided new settings for social policies throughout Europe, including Finland. Finland gained independence in 1917 and suffered from a short but brutal civil war between Whites (government troops) and Reds (socialists) in 1918. The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland supported the White winners of the war, although both factions were members of the same church. Deaconess institutes sought ways to resolve tensions between the social classes, and to find new societal relevance in their long tradition of social care among the poor and the suffering. One innovative path was found in the care of intellectually disabled children and adults. People with disabilities were seen as a novel mission field, neglected by private and public providers of care. Asylums were established and deaconesses were sent abroad to study institutional care in Germany and the Nordic countries. The new special care institutions, established in the 1920s and 1930s by the Helsinki Deaconess Institute and the Home Mission Society of the Finnish Church, were considered the most advanced special care facilities for people with intellectual disabilities. This process can be conceptualized as a transformation in which the church-based charities met the challenges of modernity by assuming a new position as leading experts in disabilities.