ABSTRACT
In organising for registration British nurses were not influenced exclusively by their medical predecessors. Nurses in America and the dominions had also been active in seeking legal legitimation of their status.1 Co-operation between the protagonists of nursing reform in Britain and the USA was motivated by a shared political vision of the structure and organisation of professional nursing; suffragist sympathies and registrationist politics condensed into a heady brew of emancipatory politics expressed most forcibly in the early ideals of the International Council of Nurses (ICN). Bonds forged between nurse leaders across the Atlantic provided a source of social and intellectual support, reminiscent of an ‘invisible college’. Invisible colleges (the term is more current in the history and sociology of science) comprise informal networks of contacts through which information is sifted and exchanged. They act as gate-keepers of information and ‘state-of-the-art’ technology.2 The Americans and British crossed the Atlantic to visit each other and were members of the same organisations. This chapter considers the interactions between British and American registrationists. It examines the extent to which the registration question in England and Wales was shaped by contact with American nurses, and by pressures in the administration of health care more generally. It argues that ultimately, however, the achievement of registration in Britain can best be understood in the context of the Ministry of Health’s plans for reconstructing the health services.
