In 1881, the congregation was invited to the Archdiocese of Baltimore and crossed the Atlantic to establish a health care ministry in Baltimore, Maryland. By 1909, convents were established in Washington, D.C. and in Detroit, Michigan.

The Sisters of Bon Secours provided the world's first recorded formal home health care service as well as the first day care facility in Baltimore in 1907 to help working mothers whose only alternative was to place their children in orphanages. St. Edmond's Home for Crippled Children, established in 1916, was the first Catholic home for the physically challenged.

The Sisters have a long tradition of willingness to take risks in pursuit of innovation, growth and extension of mission.

The Sisters of Bon Secours established their first hospital in Baltimore in 1919 and opened their second, in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, in 1945. By 1980, the Sisters had established and/or managed several Catholic hospitals, long-term care facilities and other health care services.

The Bon Secours Health System was formed in 1983 to provide skilled, unified management and professional resources for all Bon Secours health care operations while preserving Jesus' healing mission and Bon Secours' tradition of providing quality care to all, especially the poor, sick and dying.

Learn more about the history of the Sisters of Bon Secours by exploring our Archives, a repository for material relevant to the Sisters of Bon Secours in the United States, dating from 1881 to the present. We also now have A Century of Caring 1881 - 1981 available from our Archives Office.