Undoing state borders one poor person at a time: Roman Catholic charitable sociability in the borderland province of Posen of the early twentieth-century German Empire

The article examines the transformation of Roman Catholic charitable sociability in the Province of Posen, a contested eastern borderland of the early twentieth-century German Empire. Focusing on the Societies of Saint Vincent de Paul and the Associations of the Ladies of Charity, it analyses how Polish Catholic volunteers adapted their model of assistance in response to the emerging imperial welfare environment. Drawing on border-studies insights that conceptualize state borders as dynamic processes, the article interprets poor relief as a site where imperial borders were reinforced, negotiated and contested. Under the influence of the state border process, Vincentian charity shifted from a universalist vision of caritas to a denominationally and nationally bounded form of social provision that aligned assistance to the poor with the aim of preserving the Polish Catholic community and promoting the ideal of a Polish nation-state. The analysis reveals the gendered nature of this transformation. While male Vincentians remained guardians of traditional charity, female volunteers expanded their roles in childcare and municipal welfare. The movement’s charitable assistance blurred the boundaries between social provision, religious mission and patriotic activism, becoming a means of resisting the German state’s attempts to reshape the borderland’s demographics.