Public health nursing in Australia is not written into the history of Australian nursing, yet there have been public health nurses in Australia since about 1902. Nor is there a shortage of historical material--regular articles were published in nursing and medical journals about public health nursing during the early decades of the twentieth century. Why then, is public health nursing so invisible to historians in Australia? This paper will argue that public health nursing has been neglected in Australia because of excessive hospital centrism in nursing and nursing organisations. Hospital centrism provided public hospital Matrons with considerable power, and they not only controlled the various state based nursing organisations but also the curriculum of nurse training programs. Hospital doctors, who were permitted to become members of nursing organisations, were able to exert a great deal of influence over nursing ensuring biomedical influence over nurse training. Matrons and doctors developed a symbiotic relationship through which they organised nursing around the provision of a nursing workforce for hospital medicine and this focus has perpetuated until the present day. The concentration in nursing histories on hospital nursing and nursing organisations is reflective of the superior status accorded historically to hospital nursing over any other form of nursing practice so public health and community health nursing have long been neglected in Australia.
Clara Barton was a nineteenth century woman driven to greatness. She was a teacher, a nurse, a Civil War heroine and founder of the American Red Cross. In order to cut a path into the future we must know where we have been. The story of Clara Barton is about someone who cut that path. It is about courage, overcoming obstacles, never giving up and doing the job that needs doing. What makes it fascinating is the human side, the weaknesses that coloured her life. We can learn from her journey as we develop our own path into the future.
Using contemporary accounts as well as current academic literature this paper considers the amount and quality of skills teaching to nursing students from the mid 19th century to the late 20th century. All sources agree that the responsibility to teach practice skills lay with ward sisters who are reported to have regularly neglected to focus on this aspect of their role. Schools of nursing, on the other hand, were charged with the teaching of theory. Failing to find any evidence of good quality and systematic skills teaching to nursing students in the past this paper argues that no 'golden age' of skills teaching in nurse training or education ever existed.
This paper is based upon research undertaken in the Birmingham City Archives in which the development of nurse training and education is traced from its beginnings in 1869 to the creation of a central school for the Teaching Hospitals in 1957. The results from this research are discussed in the context of national developments in training and as such developments in Birmingham can be seen as typical of many towns and cities in provincial England, during the period under study.
The Sairey Gamp image has been grossly overused in describing the 'un-reformed' 19th-century British nurse/midwife. For Dickens she was a literary device--an exaggerated portrait of the reality, which has often come to represent the true state of British nursing at the time. But were things uniformly bad in nursing? Those who nursed the sick in voluntary hospitals were, undoubtedly, not of the highest class but many, no doubt, gave reasonably good service. In workhouses those entrusted with caring for the sick were often able-bodied paupers, which added an additional disadvantage to the working class status of nurses in general. In this paper I will explore the myth in relation to selected citations from the literature and to data gathered from the probationer registers of Kensington Infirmary (St Mary Abbot's Hospital) in west London.
Miss Eva C. E. Lückes was the Matron of the London Hospital for thirty-nine years. She is perhaps best remembered for the establishment of the first Preliminary Training School in England in 1895, and her perceived stance against the proposals for the registration of nurses. This article illustrates that Miss Lückes achieved much more than that and was, in fact, an innovative nursing leader in advance of her time.
It is important that nurses reflect upon and understand the past, learn the lessons this experience teaches, and apply the knowledge to the nursing practice of today. As stated by Hezel and Linebach (1991) cited in Kirby (1998), the future of nursing may well depend on the study of its history. Nurses must be able to recognise how nursing's past can contribute to the present, and can provide nurses with informed arguments to use in the making of future practice decisions. Nurses have learned that just because a particular type of care was undertaken in the past, ritual care, Walsh (1994) it is not necessarily correct for today's evidence or outcome-based care.
This article provides an historical review of past and present healthcare changes within the West Yorkshire town of Halifax, United Kingdom (UK). There is a focus on institutional and nursing history. There is discussion of the architectural design differences between hospitals with traditional pavilion 'Nightingale' wards and the less common circular ward design. The importance of understanding the past to understand the future is explored.
Private duty nursing is not well researched in Australian history of nursing literature. While it would appear private duty nursing formed the main avenue of employment for trained nurses during the first part of the twentieth century, this type of nursing seems to have disappeared by the mid 1970s. This paper used a case study obtained from an oral history project to examine possible factors contributing to the phasing out of private duty nursing. It concluded there were two main influential issues: an increase in the use of medical technology and the impact this had on nursing practice; and an increase in the financial value placed on nursing which saw nursing wages increase dramatically from 1970.
In the nineteenth century, the only method open to asylum nurses and attendants to air a grievance, apart from resigning from their employment, was to present a petition to their employing authorities. In fact they were still making use of the petition as late as 1899, when a petition was presented in London, by attendants in favour of shorter hours. (This was turned down for reasons of expense.)
By the early 20th century, nurse-training at the Seamen's Hospital Society 'flagship' hospital at Greenwich was at least as well established as that in the London teaching hospitals. It had its origins in the late 19th century--in the light of Florence Nightingale's nursing reforms (she had initiated the training school at St Thomas's in 1860). Although Nightingale's major interests lay in the welfare of the soldier, she was clearly concerned with the health of the seafarer also. However, those early days of nurse training at the Dreadnought hospital posed numerous problems, not only for nurse training but for nursing in general. The second part of this article will appear in the next issue of the International History of Nursing Journal.
Friederike Fliedner, born Münster, is one of the 19th century's many Christian women, who have been long forgotten. In the history of nursing, she is best known as the wife of the Reverend Theodor Fliedner, the founder of the Protestant Nursing Sister movement, and as his assistant in this work. Although the couple started the movement together, Friederike Fliedner's contribution was particularly comprehensive, and this was crucial in the foundation of both professional nursing and women's rights for an independent position. Despite the brevity of Friederike Fliedner's influence on these two important areas, taking place between 1836 and 1842, her contribution was so significant that it has a relevance for nursing and for women today.
The Hospital Saturday Fund was established as a means of providing much-needed contributions to the voluntary hospitals. Subscribing to the Fund ensured the contributor's care, but, additionally, they could sponsor a 'deserving object'. The annual reports of the Fund provide a number of insights in relation to the social, economic and political history of Liverpool. The reports also provide some insights into nursing in the city during the period 1888-1927. Following documentary analysis, the paper discusses some of these findings, namely district nursing, services for women and convalescence, and evaluates how useful this source may be to nursing history.
Edwina Perkins was a student nurse in South Wales between 1937 and 1941. This article reviews her nursing notebooks, their context and relation to current practice. The notebooks are examined with regard to their historical contribution, enhancing insights into nursing past and present, and, from a more personal perspective, Edwina's life as a nurse and the process of discovering more about her.
In the pages of her publications 'The Nursing Record' and 'The British Journal of Nursing', Mrs Bedford Fenwick portrayed the Poor Law nurses as struggling against the forces of parsimony and ignorance in the persons of the workhouse master and matron. The representation of these women as victims of the system rescued by Mrs Bedford Fenwick disguises their considerable achievements towards improving the quality of care for their deprived patients. This paper examines how the Poor Law nurses seized the opportunity afforded by the campaign for State Registration to further their cause in developing a professional nursing service for a neglected group of patients.
This paper explores the origins of school nursing in the school medical service. The work and employment of school nurses is discussed, presenting some interesting resonances with today's school nursing practice. It is regrettable that there is no single, clear voice from a school nurse, but other sources were found, and the humanity added by nurses to the screening and treatment of children is apparent. A second paper, to be published in the next issue of the International History of Nursing Journal, considers the work of school nurses in the period immediately after World War II.
This paper provides some personal reflections that explore the legal, ethical and human rights issues of conducting oral history interviews with elderly retired nurses. The interviews are part of a research study into the history of nursing in the West Yorkshire towns of Halifax and Huddersfield, UK, between 1870-1960. The merit of this research is that it provides a unique account of the development of nursing and can enrich our understanding of the implications for present-day practice within the fast changing world of the 21st century. A literature review identified a 'gap in knowledge' of how and why local nursing developed. This study proposes to bridge this gap and provide an investigative account of the important issues for local nursing. The two methodological approaches are analysis of the primary and secondary documentary archival sources, and oral history interviewing of retired nurses. 'Word of mouth' or snowball sampling identified over 300 potential interviewees ranging from 65-97 years old. A final sample of 21 representative of location, age and career experience was selected to ensure a strategic purposive sample. The resultant audiotapes and transcripts will be stored in the university's archives. The main focus of the paper will be the legal, ethical and human rights issues of storing interviewees tapes/transcripts in archives. Reflections on these problems and attempts to overcome them have been provided. These are centred on the issue of whether to edit the tapes and/or transcripts. Arguments are provided for and against editing and potential practical solutions to some of the practical issues are identified. The main aim is to identify methods that will enable the protection of those who may be harmed in anyway by the tapes or transcripts been open to public access.
In the field of learning disabilities, oral history has exclusively focussed on the lives of people who were detained in large institutions and hospitals for the mentally deficient or handicapped. Such work has been invaluable in providing unique and authentic insights into the lives of people with learning disabilities during the last century. It has also helped us better understand the impact of social policy and legislative change, such as the introduction to the Mental Deficiency Act 1913. However, little is known about what life was like as a nurse working the field of learning disabilities in the last century. The chief aim of this paper is to present analysed data obtained by using the oral history approach to support and/or challenge our current knowledge of learning disability during this time. As such, it presents a unique contribution to our knowledge of the history of learning disability nursing in the UK.
A previous paper (published in the last issue of the 'International History of Nursing Journal') traced the origins of the school medical service and the work and employment of school nurses in the first years. The following account outlines the development of school nursing up to the period following the World War II. This takes place against a series of political and organisational changes, including those precipitated by both the World wars. Although there are frequent references to school nursing work in contemporary records, the voice of school nurses themselves is often missing. The sources used in writing this paper include the archives of the Health Visitors' Association and its predecessors (particularly the Women Public Health Officers' Association--the WPHOA) include records of the responses of a professional association for school nurses to proposed changes. Records of the School Medical Group (SMG) of the Society of Medical Officers of Health (Soc MOsH), including correspondence with the BMA, were also consulted. The records of both of these groups are held at the Contemporary Medical Archive of the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine. Material kept at the Public Record Office was used, but papers relating to the years after 1969 remain closed under the 30-year rule. Relevant secondary sources were also used.
