Providence Hospital traces its roots to 17th-century France, where in 1633 a parish priest, Vincent de Paul, and an aristocratic widow, Louise de Marillac, founded a new religious order dedicated to serving the poor. Unlike other Catholic sisters, the Daughters of Charity were not cloistered. Instead, they took their ministry to the people most in need.
Nearly one hundred and eighty years later, a young widow and mother of five children felt called to establish a similar religious community in the United States. Elizabeth Ann Seton, later named the first American-born saint in the Catholic Church, founded the Sisters of Charity in Emmitsburg, Maryland in 1809.