Nursing the Nation

JEAN C. WHELAN was an adjunct associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Whelan was named president of the American Association for the History of Nursing (AAHN) in 2012. She received the 2013 Legacy Award from Penn Nursing Alumni in 2014 and the Mary M. Roberts Award from the AAHN in 2015.

"Filled with 'aha! moments,' Nursing the Nation provides an interesting lens through which to explore and illuminate the early days of the nursing profession. In an illuminating discussion, Whelan traces historical roots explaining our relationships to each other as nurses, our students, our physician colleagues and the hospitals in which many of us work."— Dr. Robert Atkins, Director of New Jersey Health Initiatives"This timely and important book fills a much needed gap in our understanding of how the modern nursing profession has developed. Whelan draws on extensive sources to demonstrate the ways that both race and gender have impacted the workforce and patient care. A must read."— Kylie Smith, Talking Therapy: Knowledge and Power in American Psychiatric Nursing"We have needed this superb historical analysis for a very long time. Jean Whelan, analyzing perennial nursing shortages, explains why the American health care system seems to always be in crisis. Whelan's elegantly written book intertwines the experiences of individual nurses with the institutions that supported, transformed, and undermined their work, and the sexism and racism that thwarted their efforts. With its focus on nurses as workers not just professionals, Nursing the Nation should be read and taught widely to explain the origins of contemporary dilemmas in American health care."— Susan M. Reverby, author of Ordered to Care: the Dilemma of American Nursing

• ContentsAcknowledgmentsChapter 1: Have Cap Will Travel: How and Why Nurses Became ProfessionalsChapter 2: Starting Out: Organizing the Work and the ProfessionChapter 3: Supplying Nurses: The Central Registry BusinessChapter 4: Surpluses, Shortages and SegregationChapter 5: Private Duty's Golden AgeChapter 6: The Great Depression: Collapse, Resurrection, and SuccessChapter 7: More and More (and Better) NursesChapter 8: ConclusionBibliography