Divided Sisterhood

Explores the establishment of nursing in South Africa as a profession for white, English-speaking "ladies" in the last third of the 19th century, the class and racial tensions that developed as first Afrikaner and then black women joined its ranks, and the way processes of professionalization further divided nurses, so that today it suffers from a "major crisis of identity". The book claims that the history of the nursing profession provides a powerful metaphor for South African society, and examines the connection between the development of nursing and the development of apartheid.