The History of Nursing is a complex, shifting discipline engaged in an ongoing search for identity and purpose. If its earliest works were celebratory narratives of ‘great deeds’ and ‘influential nurses’, dominated by biographies of Florence Nightingale and tropes of imperial womanhood, then from at least the 1970s, academics—drawn mainly from Women’s History and Nursing—have argued for a move from such uncritical stances and towards more analytical and nuanced approaches. Lately, Nursing History has been characterized by the ‘cultural turn’, with a shift in focus from class, gender, and race, to the study of practices, ideologies, and life-worlds. Characterized by an emphasis on history ‘from below’, it aims to recapture the experiences of both nurses and patients, and to recover voices that never found their way into mainstream histories of healthcare or society.
Now, a new title from Routledge’s Major Themes in Health and Social Welfare series meets the need for an authoritative reference work to make sense of this evolution. Edited by the Director of the UK Centre for the History of Nursing and Midwifery at the University of Manchester, The History of Nursing offers both a historiographical overview of disciplinary trends and a definitive omnibus of classic scholarship and rigorous research studies. Avoiding material which is tendentious, superficial, and otiose, it will be welcomed as an ‘über-anthology’of the most significant and valuable major works in the History of Nursing.
Volume I: From Celebration to Critique—The Purposes of Nursing History
Part 1: Chronicles of Progress
1. Sarah A.Tooley, ‘The Poor Law Nursing Service’, The History of Nursing in the British Empire (S. H. Bousefield and Co., 1906), pp. 209–37.
2. Adelaide Nutting and Lavinia Dock, ‘The Nightingale School for Nurses at St. Thomas’s Hospital’, A History of Nursing, Vol. 2 (G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1907–12), pp. 172–206.
3. Lavinia Dock and Isabel Stewart, ‘Introductory Outline’, A Short History of Nursing, 4th edn. (G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1938), pp. 1–19.
4. Lucy Seymer, ‘The Development of Training Schools’, A General History of Nursing (Faber and Faber, 1949), pp. 116–34.
Part 2: New Histories
5. Brian Abel-Smith, ‘The Profession Comes to Power’, A History of the Nursing Profession (Heinemann, 1960), pp. 81–98.
6. Barbara Melosh, ‘"A Charge to Keep": Hospital Schools of Nursing 1920–1950’, The Physician’s Hand: Work Culture and Conflict in American Nursing (Temple University Press, 1982), pp. 37–76.
7. Martha Vicinus, ‘Reformed Hospital Nursing: Discipline and Cleanliness’, Independent Women: Work and Community for Single Women, 1850–1920 (Virago, 1985), pp. 85–120.
8. Monica Baly, ‘The Nightingale Nurses: Myth and Reality’, in Christopher Maggs (ed.), Nursing History: The State of the Art (Croom Helm, 1987), pp. 33–59.
9. Susan Reverby, ‘Training as Work: The Pupil Nurse as Hospital Machine’, Ordered to Care: The Dilemma of American Nursing, 1850–1945 (Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 60–76.
10. Karen Buhler Wilkerson, ‘Guarded by Standards and Directed by Strangers: Charlston, South Carolina’s Response to a National Health Care Agenda, 1920–1930’, Nursing History Review, 1993, 1, 140–54.
11. Anne Summers, ‘Heroines for the Empire 1883–1902’, Angels and Citizens: British Women as Military Nurses, 1854–1914, revised edn. (Threshold Press, 2000), pp. 147–72.
12. Helen Sweet with Rona Dougall, ‘Language of Caring: Care and Nurses’ Lives’, Community Nursing and Primary Healthcare in Twentieth Century Britain (Routledge, 2007), pp. 165–85.
13. Carol Helmstadter and Judith Godden, ‘The Demise of Sisterhood Nursing and the Central System’, Nursing Before Nightingale (Ashgate, 2012), pp. 169–89.
Part 3: Debate and Controversy
14. Celia Davies, ‘Introduction: The Contemporary Challenge in Nursing History’, in Davies (ed.), Rewriting Nursing History (Croom Helm, 1980), pp. 11–17.
15. Christopher Maggs, ‘Nursing History: Contemporary Practice: Contemporary Concerns’, in Maggs (ed.), Nursing History: The State of the Art (Croom Helm, 1987), pp. 1–8.
16. Patricia D’Antonio, ‘Revisiting and Rethinking the Rewriting of Nursing History’, Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 1999, 73, 2, 268–90.
17. Sioban Nelson, ‘The Fork in the Road: Nursing History Versus the History of Nursing?’, Nursing History Review, 2002, 10, 175–88.
Part 4: From Great Women to Intricate Lives
18. Cecil Woodham-Smith, Florence Nightingale, 1820–1910 (Constable, 1950), pp. 258–81.
19. Jo Manton, ‘Sister-in-Charge: 1868–1870’, Sister Dora: The Life of Dorothy Pattison (Methuen and Co., 1971), pp. 210–28.
20. Judith Godden, ‘Lucy Osburn, Lady Probationer’, Lucy Osburn: A Lady Displaced (Sydney University Press, 2006), pp. 50–65.
21. Mark Bostridge, ‘A Visible March to Heaven’, Florence Nightingale: The Woman and Her Legend (Viking, 2008), pp. 251–77.
22. Susan Armstrong-Reid, ‘Soldier of Peace, 1944–1946’, Lyle Creelman: The Frontiers of Global Nursing (University of Toronto Press, 2014), pp. 71–105.
Volume II: Nursing, Power, and Politics
Part 1: Processes of Professionalization
23. Robert Dingwall, Anne Marie Rafferty, and Charles Webster, ‘The Nationalization of Nursing’, An Introduction to the Social History of Nursing (Routlege, 1988), pp. 98–122.
24. Hilde Steppe, ‘Nursing Under Totalitarian Regimes: The Case of National Socialism’, in Anne Marie Rafferty, Jane Robinson, and Ruth Elkan (eds.), Nursing History and the Politics of Welfare (Routledge, 1996), pp. 10–27.
25. Peter Nolan, ‘Mental Nursing in the Early 20th Century’, A History of Mental Health Nursing (Nelson Thornes Ltd, 1998), pp. 74–95.
26. Chris Hart, ‘The Great Divide: Trade Unions and Nurses’, Nurses and Politics: The Impact of Power and Practice (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), pp. 199–236.
27. Sioban Nelson, ‘Free Enterprise and Resourcefulness: An American Success Story—The Daughters of Charity in the Northeast’, Say Little Do Much: Nurses, Nuns and Hospitals in the Nineteenth Century (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003), pp. 32–55.
28. Rima D. Apple, ‘Much Instruction Needed Here: The Work of Nurses in Rural Wisconsin During the Depression’, Nursing History Review, 2007, 15, 95–111.
29. Cynthia Connolly, ‘"I Am a Trained Nurse": The Nursing Identity of Anarchist and Radical Emma Goldman’, Nursing History Review, 2010, 18, 84–99.
Part 2: The Closure of Professional Boundaries
30. Susan McGann, ‘Mrs Bedford Fenwick: A Restless Genius (1857–1947)’, The Battle of the Nurses: A Study of Eight Women Who Influenced the Development of Professional Nursing (Scutari Press, 1992), pp. 35–57.
31. Celia Davies and Abigail Beach, ‘"All is Not Well With Nursing": The Briggs Committee and a New Statutory Framework’, Interpreting Professional Self-Regulation: A History of the United Kingdom Central Council for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting (Routledge, 2000), pp. 3–23.
32. Katrin Schultheiss, ‘Nursing in Postwar France’, Bodies and Souls: Politics and the Professionalization of Nursing in France, 1880–1922 (Harvard University Press, 2001), pp. 176–92.
33. Jean C. Whelan, ‘"A Necessity in the Nursing World": The Chicago Nurses Professional Registry, 1913–1950’, Nursing History Review, 2005, 13, 49–75.
34. Arlene Keeling, ‘Midway Between the Pharmacists and the Physician’, Nursing and the Privilege of Prescription (Ohio State University Press, 2007), pp. 1–27.
35. Julie A. Fairman, ‘Stealing the Spell Book’, Making Room in the Clinic: Nurse Practitioners and the Evolution of Modern Health Care (Rutgers University Press, 2009), pp. 86–113.
Part 3: Nursing Knowledge and the Education of Nurses
36. Anne Marie Rafferty, ‘The Education Policy of the General Nursing Council (1919–32)’, The Politics of Nursing Knowledge (Routledge, 1996), pp. 113–38.
37. Geertje Boschma, ‘High Ideals Versus Harsh Reality: A Historical Analysis of Mental Health Nursing in Dutch Asylums, 1890–1920’, Nursing History Review, 1999, 7, 127–51.
38. Carmen Mangion, ‘Give Them Practical Lessons: Catholic Women Religious and the Transmission of Nursing Knowledge in Late-Nineteenth-Century England’, in Martin Dinges and Robert Jütte, The Transmission of Health Practices (c. 1500 to 2000) (Institute for the History of Medicine of the Robert Bosch Foundation, 2011), pp. 89–104.
39. Susanne Kreutzer, ‘Conflicting Christian and Scientific Nursing Concepts in West Germany, 1945–1970’, in Patricia D’Antonio, Julie A. Fairman, and Jean Whelan (eds.), Routledge Handbook of the Global History of Nursing (Routledge, 2013), pp. 151–64.
Volume III: Social and Economic Histories of Nursing
Part 1: Nursing and Social Class
40. Kathryn McPherson, ‘Gender, Class and Ethnicity: Reconceptualising the History of Nursing’, Bedside Matters: The Transformation of Canadian Nursing, 1900–1990 (University of Toronto Press, 1996), pp. 1–25.
41. Sue Hawkins, ‘The Search for Self-esteem’, Nursing and Women’s Labour in the Nineteenth Century: The Quest for Independence (Routledge, 2010), pp. 11–35.
42. Pamela Wood, ‘Sickening Nurses: Fever Nursing, Nurses’ Illness and the Anatomy of Blame, New Zealand 1903–23’, Nursing History Review, 2011, 19, 53–77.
Part 2: Nursing and Modern Economies
43. Christopher Maggs, ‘Profit and Loss and the Hospital Nurse’, in Christopher Maggs (ed.), Nursing History: The State of the Art (Croom Helm, 1987), pp. 176–89.
44. Joy Buck, ‘Home Hospice Versus Home Health: Cooperation, Competition and Cooptation’, Nursing History Review, 2004, 12, 25–46.
45. Susan McGann, Anne Crowther, and Rona Dougall, ‘The 1960s: A Decade of Discontent’, A Voice for Nurses: A History of the Royal College of Nursing, 1916–90 (Manchester University Press, 2009), pp. 196–238.
46. Arlene Keeling, ‘Migrant Nursing in the Great Depression: Floods, Flies and Farm Security Administration’, in Arlene Keeling and John Kirchgessner (eds.), Nursing Rural America: Perspectives from the Early Twentieth Century (Springer, 2014), pp. 103–17.
Part 3: The Influence of Gender History
47. Judith Moore, ‘Public Date’, A Zeal for Responsibility: The Struggle for Professional Nursing in Victorian England, 1868–1883 (University of Georgia Press, 1988), pp. 63–74.
48. Jane E. Schultz, ‘The Inhospitable Hospital: Gender and Professionalism in Civil War Medicine’, Signs, 1992, 17, 2, 363–92.
49. Susanne Malchau, ‘Women Religious and Protestant Welfare: The Sisters of Saint Joseph’s Empire of Catholic Hospitals in Denmark’, in Yvonne Maria Werner (ed.), Nuns and Sisters in the Nordic Countries after the Reformation (Studio Missionalis Svecana XC, 2004), pp. 107–48.
Part 4: Race, Ethnicity, and Nursing
50. Shula Marks, ‘But why Nursing?’, Divided Sisterhood: Race, Class and Gender in the South African Nursing Profession (St Martin’s Press, 1994), pp. 1–14.
51. Susan, M. Reverby, ‘Rethinking the Tuskegee Syphilis Study: Nurse Rivers, Silence, and the Meaning of Treatment’, Nursing History Review, 1999, 7, 3–28.
52. Barbra Mann Wall, ‘Catholic Sister Nurses in Selma, Alabama, 1940–1972’, Advances in Nursing Science, 2009, 32, 1, 91–102.
53. Patricia D’Antonio, ‘Race, Place, and Professional Identity’, American Nursing: A History of Knowledge, Authority and the Meaning of Work (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010), pp. 99–120.
Volume IV: The Nature of Nursing—Histories of Culture and Practice
Part 1: The ‘Cultural Turn’ in the History of Nursing
54. Catherine Judd, ‘"Infinite Nastiness": Social Healing and the Pathology of the Victorian Novel (1830–1880)’, Bedside Seductions: Nursing and the Victorian Imagination, 1830–1880 (Palgrave Macmillan, 1997), pp. 17–32.
55. Julia Hallam, ‘The Popular Imagination’, Nursing The Image: Media, Culture and Professional Identity (Routledge, 2000), pp. 32–83.
56. Margarete Sandelowski, ‘The Physician’s Eyes: American Nursing and the Diagnostic Revolution in Medicine’, Nursing History Review, 2000, 8, 3–38.
57. Hazel Hutchison, ‘The Theater of Pain: Observing Mary Borden in The Forbidden Zone’, in Alison S. Fell and Christine E. Hallett (eds.), First World War Nursing: New Perspectives (Routledge, 2013), pp. 139–55.
58. Jane Schultz, ‘From Nurse to Icon: Florence Nightingale’s Impact on Women in the American Civil War’, in David Gleeson and Simon Lewis (eds.), The Civil War as Global Conflict (University of South Carolina Press, 2013), pp. 233–50.
59. Thomas Lawrence Long, ‘Nurses and Nursing in Literary and Cultural Studies’, in Patricia D’Antonio, Julie Fairman, and Jean Whelan, (eds.), Routledge Handbook of the Global History of Nursing (Routledge, 2013), pp. 37–54.
Part 2: Global and Postcolonial Histories
60. Sonya Grypma, ‘China Confidential: Methodological and Ethical Challenges in Global Nursing Historiography’, Nursing History Review, 2012, 20, 162–83.
61. Winifred Connerton, ‘American Nurses in Colonial Settings’, in Patricia D’Antonio, Julie Fairman, and Jean Whelan (eds.), Routledge Handbook of the Global History of Nursing (Routledge, 2013), pp. 11–21.
62. Helen Sweet, ‘A Mission to Nurse: The Mission Hospital’s Role in the Development of Nursing in South Africa, c. 1948–1975’, in Patricia D’Antonio, Julie Fairman, and Jean Whelan (eds.), Routledge Handbook of the Global History of Nursing (Routledge, 2013), pp. 198–217.
63. B. M. Wall, ‘Beyond the Imperial Narrative: Catholic Missionary Nursing, Medicine, and Knowledge Translation in Sub-Saharan Africa, 1945–1980’, in E. Fleischmann, et al. (eds.), Transnational and Historical Perspectives on Global Health, Welfare and Humanitarianism (Kristiansand, Norway: Portal Forlag Publishers, 2013), pp. 90–109.
Part 3: Histories of Nursing Practice
64. Cynthia Toman, ‘Blood Work: Canadian Nursing and Blood Transfusion, 1942–1990’, Nursing History Review, 2001, 9, 51–78.
65. Christine E. Hallett, ‘Containing Physical Trauma on the Western Front’, Containing Trauma: Nursing Work in the First World War (Manchester University Press, 2009), pp. 27–83.
66. Jane Brooks, ‘Uninterested in Anything Except Food: The Work of Nurses Feeding the Liberated Inmates of Bergen Belsen’, Journal of Clinical Nursing, 2012, 21, 2958–65.
67. Martin S. McNamara, Gerard Fealy, and Ruth Geraghty, ‘Cultures of Control: A Historical Analysis of the Development of Infection Control Nursing in Ireland’, Nursing History Review, 2013, 23, 55–75.
68. Karen Nolte, ‘Protestant Nursing Care in Germany in the Nineteenth Century’, in Patricia D’Antonio, Julie Fairman, and Jean Whelan (eds.), Routledge Handbook of the Global History of Nursing (Routledge, 2013), pp. 167–82.
69. John Adams, ‘The Nursing Role in the Use of Insulin Coma Therapy for Schizophrenia in Britain, 1936–1965’, Journal of Advanced Nursing, 2014, 70, 9, 2086–94.
