PITTSBURGH — L. Hafer of the Pittsburgh Daily Post paid a visit way back on June 9, 1847, to Mercy Hospital, the Catholic hospital begun by the Sisters of Mercy, a religious congregation founded in Ireland. The hospital had just opened its doors four months earlier in a former concert hall smack in the middle of the city on the cusp of transitioning from a frontier outpost to a major industrial hub.

“The Mother Superior very politely conducted us through the new institution, the cleanliness, neatness are everywhere seen,” Hafer wrote. “There are two rows of beds where the sick are brought and have every attention and kindness extended to them. … It is an institution intended for the accommodation of men and women of every race, creed and nationality.”