ABSTRACT

This book brings together a collection of works by scholars who have produced some of the most innovative and influential work on the topic of First World War nursing in the last ten years. The contributors employ an interdisciplinary collaborative approach that takes into account multiple facets of Allied wartime nursing: historical contexts (history of the profession, recruitment, teaching, different national socio-political contexts), popular cultural stereotypes (in propaganda, popular culture) and longstanding gender norms (woman-as-nurturer). They draw on a wide range of hitherto neglected historical sources, including diaries, novels, letters and material culture. The result is a fully-rounded new study of nurses’ unique and compelling perspectives on the unprecedented experiences of the First World War. 

chapter |14 pages

Introduction

New Perspectives on First World War Nursing

part I|54 pages

National Identities

chapter 1|18 pages

Making Sister Julie

The Origin of First World War French Nursing Heroines in Franco-Prussian War Stories

chapter 2|16 pages

“Beacons of Britishness”

British Nurses and Female Doctors as Prisoners of War

chapter 3|18 pages

“I Begin to Feel as a Normal Being Should, in Spite of the Blood and Anguish in Which I Move”

American Women's First World War Nursing Memoirs

part II|52 pages

Professional Identities

chapter 4|16 pages

“All for the Boys”

The Nurse–Patient Relationship of Australian Army Nurses in the First World War

chapter 5|16 pages

“Emotional Nursing”

Involvement, Engagement, and Detachment in the Writings of First World War Nurses and VADs

chapter 6|18 pages

A Sister's War

The Diaries of Alice Slythe 1

part III|52 pages

Nurse as Witness

chapter 8|17 pages

The Theater of Pain

Observing Mary Borden in The Forbidden Zone

chapter |20 pages

Afterword

Remembering the First World War Nurse in Britain and France