Description
Book SynopsisThis political history shows how the turmoil and transformation of nursing during the French Third Republic reflected the political and cultural tensions at work in the nation, including critical conflicts over the role of the Church in society, the professionalization of medicine, and the emancipation of women.
Trade ReviewSchultheiss's study is positioned at the point of intersection of a number of critical conflicts in this formative period of the Third Republic. The book is essentially a political study of nursing. The social history of nurses, their daily work, living conditions, ages, marital status, and earnings makes an appearance, but is not the focus. The focus is the debate over, and within, nursing, how this debate interacted with the political forces, and its results upon hospital nursing and nursing education but also in forging a feminine version of citizenship. It is very well written. -- Margaret H. Darrow, Dartmouth College
An exhaustively researched and documented study. A major work. -- Louise A. Tilly, New School University
Katrin Schultheiss...is one of a handful of non-nurses who understand what the profession has to teach us about the complex process of female emancipation, as well as about the development of modern healthcare systems. She recounts the torturous history of how the "professionalization" of nursing in France coincided with anticlericalism and the secularization of the field. Although her story focuses on the forty-year period from 1880 to 1922 and takes place in one country, the gender dilemmas Schultheiss explores have hampered nurses' ability to care for patients in healthcare systems around the globe, including in the United States. -- Suzanne Gordon * The Nation *
Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. Hospital Nursing in Paris 2. The Nursing Sisters of Lyons 3. The Gardes-malades of Bordeaux 4. Class, Gender, and Professional Identity 5. The Nursing Profession in World War I 6. Nursing in Postwar France Abbreviations Used in the Notes Notes Index
