Elbląg was a large city before the Second World War, with developed industry and a working-class community. In the 19th-century, a district of the city called Pangritz Colony developed rapidly, in which poor newcomers from various parts of the Prussian state settled. For decades, the colony diverged sharply from the rest of the city in terms of economic and infrastructural development. All the unfavorable processes associated with the 19th-century working class, i.e. illiteracy, unemployment, social exclusion, lack of social and medical care and, above all, material poverty, were also accumulated in this area. The arrival of the Congregation of the Sisters of St Catherine in the Pangritz Colony in 1887 was of great importance in solving these problems. In the convent, until 1945, the nuns ran a small hospital, out-patient care, a kindergarten, and further education courses, and a domestic school for women. The ministry of the Sisters of St Catherine was of great importance for the development of modern social care in Elbląg.