Colonial caring

A history of colonial and post-colonial nursing

Edited by Helen Sweet, Sue Hawkins

Publication date:

01 September 2015

Length of book:

264 pages

Publisher

Manchester University Press

Dimensions:

216x138mm

ISBN-13: 9780719099700

From the height of colonialism in the mid-nineteenth century, through to the aftermath of the Second World War, nurses have been at the heart of colonial projects. They were ideally placed to insinuate the ‘improving’ culture of their employers into the local communities they served, and travelled in droves to far-flung parts of the globe to serve their country. Issues of gender, class and race permeate this book, as the complex relationships between nurses, their medical colleagues, governments and the populations they nursed are examined in detail, using case studies which draw on exciting new sources. Many of the chapters are based on first-hand accounts of nurses and reveal that not all were motivated by patriotic vigour or altruism, but went out in search of adventure. The book will be an essential read for colonial historians, as well as historians of gender and ethnicity.

An electronic edition of this book is freely available under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND) licence.

Introduction: Contextualising colonial and post-colonial nursing – Helen Sweet and Sue Hawkins
1. Lady amateurs and gentleman professionals: emergency nursing in the Indian Rebellion of 1857 – Sam Goodman
2. Imperial sisters: disease, conflict and nursing in the British Empire, 1880–1914 – Angharad Fletcher
3. The social exploits and behaviour of nurses during the Anglo-Boer War 1899–1902 – Charlotte Dale
4. Native health nurses: ‘they do what you wish; they like you; you the good nurse!’ – Linda Bryder
5. Training 'the natives' as nurses – so what went wrong? An Australian context – Odette Best
6. Working toward health, Christianity and democracy: American colonial and missionary nurses in Puerto Rico 1900–30 – Winifred Connerton
7. Educating native female nurses in the Dutch East Indies in the early twentieth century – Liesbeth Hesselink
8. A sample of Italian fascist colonialism: nursing and medical records in the Imperial War in Ethiopia, 1935–6 – Anna La Torre, Giancarlo Celeri Bellotti and Cecilia Sironi
9. The changing face of medical missions in Nigeria, 1937–70 – Barbra Mann-Wall
10. Two China gadabouts: guerrilla nursing with the Friends’ Ambulance Unit, 1946–8 – Susan Armstrong Reid
Afterword – Rima Apple
Index

'A treasure trove of fresh insight, new research and analysis this book demonstrates the vibrancy of nursing history. Its editors should be congratulated for their vision and energy in bringing together a series of chapters which express not only the many meanings of colonialism, but reveal how nursing provides a kaleidoscope through which to view broader social attitudes towards race, class, gender and the value of care from a comparative perspective.'
Anne Marie Rafferty, Professor of Nursing and Dean of the Florence Nightingale School of Nursing and Midwifery, King's College London