ISSN 1049-2259 Fall 2011, Vol. 23, No. 2

(From L to R) Dean Afaf Meleis, Joan Lynaugh, and Julie Fairman join Ellen Baer(second from right) to cut the ceremonial ribbon at the unveiling of the Center’s reading room renamed in her honor. (Photo: Beth Hull)

Bates Center Names Reading Room in Honor of Ellen D. Baer

Barbara Bates Center for The Study of The History of Nursing

University of Pennsylvania

school of nUrsing

continued on page 5

On April 27, 2011 the Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nurs-

ing kicked off its 25th anniversary by honoring Dr. Ellen D. Baer, one of the three original founders of the Center. In a surprise ceremony unveiling the name change, the Center recognized Dr. Baer as central to its establishment as a unique archival repository, research center and scholarly hub. During the ceremony Ellen was honored for her outstanding contributions, guidance, good works and concrete support. This special occasion was marked with speeches, ribbon cutting and smiles all around!

Those who have followed the Cen-ter’s progress from its inception know how critical Ellen has been to its con-tinued success. Moreover, Ellen’s im-pressive career has greatly enhanced the reputation of the Center as a place of scholastic excellence. Ellen came to Penn in 1980 as one of many faculty recruited by then Dean Claire Fagin from New York’s Lehman College. At the time, El-len, a graduate of Columbia University,

was completing her doctoral studies at New York University. Her 1982 disserta-tion, “The Conflictive Social Ideology of American Nursing, 1893, A Microcosm,” was an historical analysis examining the ideological conflicts which developed in American nursing within the social con-text of the end of the 19th century. Baer’s work explored the impact of women’s is-sues, industrialization, urbanization, the growth of science in medicine, and nurs-ing development. Nursing was part of the reform movement that developed in response to these issues. Through a happy confluence of events, Ellen joined two other Penn faculty members at the School of Nursing, Drs. Joan Lynaugh and Karen Buhler-Wilkerson, who were also trained in historical research. This wealth of his-torical scholars formed the nucleus of what became this world class Center.

Once the Center was established, (see The Chronicle, Vol.23, No.1) Ellen, who assumed the role of Associate Direc-tor, was instrumental in guiding the Cen-ter’s programs through its early years. As a prodigious scholar and educator, Ellen

by Jean C. Whelan

Barbara Bates Center for The Study of The History of Nursing

The Barbara Bates Center for The Study of The History of Nursing was established in 1985 to encourage and facilitate historical scholar-ship on health care history and nursing in the United States. Part of the Center’s mission is to maintain resources for research to improve the quality and scope of historical scholarship on nursing; and to disseminate new knowledge on nursing history through educational programs, conferences, publications, seminars and inter-disciplinary collaboration.Current projects at the Center include studies of the role of nurses in health care, the history of hospitals, the forces shaping child health care delivery, the nursing workforce and the construc-tion of nurses’ personal and professional lives. The Center also continues to collect, process, and catalogue an outstanding collection of primary historical materials.Center Hours are Monday through Friday, 10:00 am. to 4:00 pm. Scholars planning to conduct research at the Center should email nhistory@nursing.upenn.edu or call 215-898-4502. Our Center staff will respond with a description of the scope and content of relevant materials in the various collections.

Center Advisory BoardNeville Strumpf, ChairEllen D. BaerRuth Schwartz CowanDorothy del BuenoM. Louise FitzpatrickHannah HendersonJeanne KiefnerNadine LandisSandra LewensonMark Frazier LloydMarian Matez Rosalyn WattsCenter DirectorsJulie Fairman, PhD, RN, FAAN, DirectorBarbra Mann Wall, PhD, RN, FAANAssociate DirectorJean C. Whelan, PhD, RN, Assistant DirectorJoan E. Lynaugh, PhD, RN, FAAN, Director EmeritaCenter FellowsJ. Margo Brooks-Carthon, PhD, CRNP Cynthia Connolly, PhD, RN, FAAN Patricia D’Antonio, PhD, RN, FAAN,Julie Solchaski, PhD, RN, FAAN, Winifred Connerton PhD, CNM, Post-Doctoral FellowCenter StaffGail E. Farr, MA, CA, CuratorSandra Chaff, MS, MA, ArchivistTiffany Collier, MA, Administrative CoordinatorDonna Ostroff, Volunteer

The Chronicle is published twice a yearManaging Editor: Jean C. Whelan, PhD, RNEditor: Tiffany Collier, MAAssistant Editor and Graphic Designer: Kailun Wang

News from the CenterThe Chronicle

Julie Fairman inducted into Sigma Theta Tau International

Hall of Fame.

It was with great pleasure that Dean Afaf Meleis announced the induction of Bates Center Director Dr. Julie Fairman into the ranks of the Sigma Theta Tau Interna-tional Hall of Fame. In her announcement Dean Meleis noted that “Julie was select-ed for her internationally recognized pro-gram of scholarship related to the history of nursing which has had an enormous im-pact on the field of understanding the his-tory of health care and health policy after World War II. Because of this expertise, she was selected as the 2009-2010 ANA/AAN/ANF Distinguished Nurse Scholar in Residence at the Institute of Medicine resulting in her serving on the staff of the Future of Nursing Commission which was jointly led by Drs. Donna Shalala and Linda Burnes Bolton (who also sup-ported Julie’s nomination to the Hall of Fame). Julie demonstrated great leader-ship and vision in her role, providing the historical context and the framework for how the committee’s work would best meet the needs of contemporary nursing and in conducting research and writing the report. Since then, she has continued to champion the implementation of the report recommendations throughout the country.”

The induction ceremony took place July 14 in Cancun, Mexico during the 22nd International Nursing Research Confer-ence. Congratulations Julie on this no-table honor!

Bates Center Associate Director Barbra Mann Wall receives two

major honors

Faculty at the Bates Center are always a busy group, but the past six months have been particularly significant for the Center’s Associate Director Dr. Barbra Mann Wall. In March, 2011, School of Nursing Dean Afaf Meleis announced with great pleasure that Dr. Wall was granted tenure within the rank of Associ-ate Professor of Nursing effective July 1, 2011.

In her announcement Dean Meleis noted

that Dr. Wall has garnered a national and an international reputation as an expert in the history of nursing and social institu-tions intertwined with nursing profession-al history. She has a sustained program of research in the history of nursing and health care with a special emphasis on the history of Catholic Sisters and their nurs-ing work which has consistently received funding for her research. Her work has made significant scholarly contributions to the nursing history literature and has shed new light on the role of the church in nursing education.

The Bates Center was thrilled with this announcement and then in July we re-ceived more good news about Dr. Wall. Dean Meleis announced that Barbra was appointed as the Evan C. Thompson Endowed Term Chair of Excellence in Teaching, effective September 1, 2011. The Thompson Chair is funded by an en-dowment from Wharton alumnus Evan Thompson, a 1964 Wharton School grad-uate and acknowledges the commitment of dedicated teachers. This is an impres-sive and well deserved honor. Congratu-lations Barb!

AwardsCenter Fellow, Dr. Cynthia Connolly received the 2011 Penn Nursing Alumni Society Legacy Award which is presented to alumni who have contributed to pre-serving and interpreting the history of nursing at Penn.

Center Fellow, Dr. Patricia D’Antonio received the 2011, Pennsylvania Hospi-tal, Department of Nursing Relationship-Based Care, Nursing Excellence Award for her book American Nursing: A His-tory of Knowledge, Authority, and the Meaning of Work.

Center Associate Director, Dr. Barbra Mann Wall received the 2011, University of Pennsylvania, Family and Community Health Department Award for Exemplary Teaching.

GrantsTwo Bates Center faculty recently received Rockefeller Archive Center awards. Post-

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doctoral fellow Dr. Winifred Connerton received a grant for her proposal “Ameri-cans Abroad - How Nurses Represented the Country, the Women and the National Mission.” Dr. Patricia D’Antonio re-ceived a grant for her study “A History of Health Demonstration Projects in the United States, 1920-1940.” These awards enable Drs. Connerton and D’Antonio to study at and use the collections stored at the Rockefeller Archive Center.

Two faculty members were also recipi-ents of the University of Pennsylvania’s University Research Foundation Grants program (URF). Dr. Barbra Mann Wall received a URF grant for a project entitled “Knowledge Translation and the Changing Meaning of Missionary Nurs-ing.” Dr. Patricia D’Antonio received a grant for her study “A History of Health Demonstration Projects in New York City, 1920-1940.”

Doctoral Student Linda Maldonado re-ceived a Xi Chapter Sigma Theta Tau In-ternational grant for her proposal “I Told Them, ‘Leave it Alone: It’s Our Center’: Midwives’ Collaborative Activism To-wards Infant Mortality in Two U.S. Cit-ies, 1970-1990.”

Dr. Cynthia Connolly was awarded a Commonwealth Foundation grant to analyze and synthesize the Foundation’s child health programs. The grant is en-titled “State(s) of Health: The Common-wealth Fund, Child Development, and Health Policy, 1999-2011.”

Several faculty members continue work on on-going grants.

Dr. J. Margo Brooks Carthon continues work on a National Institute of Nursing Research, National Institutes of Health K01 grant, “Nursing Care and Practice Environment Influences in Reducing Dis-parities in Hospital Outcomes.”

Dr. Cynthia Connolly’s Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Investigator Award in Health Policy Research grant on the history of children and pharmaceuticals since World War II entitled “A Prescrip-tion for a Healthy Childhood: A History of Children and Pharmaceuticals in the United States” is on-going.

Dr. Patricia D’Antonio’s National En-

dowment for the Humanities (NEH) Preservation Assistance grant, which has enabled the Bates Center to contract with consultants at the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts in Philadelphia to conduct a general preservation needs assessment of the Center’s collections, re-sulted in an extensive visit and evaluation from the Conservation Center. In the next edition of The Chronicle we will feature an article describing the visit and what it means for the Center.

Drs. Patricia D’Antonio and Julie Fair-man are progressing on their Rockefeller Archive Center Conference Grant-in-Aid, “Rethinking the Global History of Nurs-ing.” They and Dr. Jean Whelan con-tinue work on a Routledge Press Publica-tion Grant for a publication entitled Rout-ledge’s Handbook on the Global History of Nursing.

PublicationsBrooks Carthon, J.M. (2011). Bridging the gap: Collaborative health work in the city of brotherly love, 1900-1920. In P. D’Antonio & S. Lewenson (Eds.), Nurs-ing History Interventions Through Time (pp. 75-85). New York: Springer Publish-ing Co.

Sumpter, D., & Brooks Carthon J. M. (2011). Lost in translation: Student per-ceptions of cultural competence in under-graduate and graduate curricula, Journal of Professional Nursing, 27(1), 43-49.

Brooks Carthon, J.M. (2011). Making ends meet: A historical account of com-munity networks and health promotion among blacks in the city of brotherly love, American Journal of Public Health, 101(8), 1392-1401.

Brooks Carthon, J.M., Kutney-Lee, A., Sloane, D., Cimniotti, J., & Aiken, L. (2011). Quality of care and patient satis-faction in hospitals with high concentra-tions of black patients, Journal of Neuro-surgery, 43(3), 301-310.

Brooks Carthon, J.M., (2011). [Review of the website Canada’s Role in Fighting Tuberculosis]. Nursing History Review, 19(1), 202-205.

Connolly, C.A. (2011). Pneumococcic meningitis: Complete recovery of a six

month old infant treated with penicil-lin, Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, 165, 385-387.

D’Antonio, P. (2011). [Review of the book Officer, Nurse, Woman: The Army Nurse Corps in the Vietnam War]. Social History of Medicine, doi: 10.1093/shm/hkr060

Fairman, J.A., & Okoye, S.M. (2011). Nursing for the future, from the past: Two reports on nursing from the Institute of Medicine, Journal of Nursing Education, 49(6), 305-311.

Fairman, J.A. (2012). The right to write: nurse practitioners and prescription. In J. Green & L. Watkins (Eds.), The American Prescription from the New Deal to the New Millenium. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press.

Fairman, J.A. (2011). Patients and the rise of the nurse practitioner profession. In B. Hoffman, N. Tomes, R. Grob & M. Schlesinger (Eds.), Patients as Policy Ac-tors (pp. 215-230). New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Mahoney, A. (2011). Florence Night-ingale: Perspective for today’s nurse. Nurse.com 2011 Presents Florence Night-ingale, 54.

Wall, B.M. (2011). Catholics in a secular marketplace, Ethics and Medics, 36(6).

PresentationsM. McHugh, J. Margo Brooks Carthon, L. Kelly, D. Sloane, L. Aiken. “Impact of Nurse Staffing Mandates on Safety Net Hospitals: Lessons from California,” Eastern Nursing Research Society 23rd Annual Scientific Session, March, 2011, Philadelphia, PA.

J. Margo Brooks Carthon. “Community Networks and Health Promotion among Blacks in the City of Brotherly Love,” Dr. Martin Luther King Commemorative Symposium on Social Change Lecture, January, 2011, University of Pennsylva-nia School of Medicine-School of Nurs-ing.

J. Margo Brooks Carthon, O. Jarrin, A. Kutney Lee. “Post-Surgical Outcomes among the Elderly: Differences by Eth-

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nicity and Gender,” Academy Health An-nual Research Meeting, Gender & Health Interest Group, June 14, 2011, Seattle, WA.

J. Margo Brooks Carthon, O. Jarrin, A. Kutney Lee. “The Influence of Race and Gender on Post-Surgical Outcomes among the Elderly,” Academy Health An-nual Research Meeting, Disparities Inter-est Group, June, 2011, Seattle, WA.

J. Margo Brooks Carthon, A. Kutney-Lee, O. Jarrín, T. Cheny, D. Sloane, L. Ai-ken. “Does Nursing Quality Impact Post-Surgical Outcome Disparities among Minority Elders?” Resource Centers for Minority Aging Research Annual Meet-ing, May, 2011, Seattle, WA.

Winifred Connerton. “All Preaching the Same Gospel: American Colonial Service and Missionary Nurses in the Philippines 1900-1917,” American Historical Asso-ciation Annual Meeting, January, 2011, Boston, MA.

Winifred Connerton. “All Preaching the Same Gospel: American Colonial Service and Missionary Nurses in the Philippines 1900-1917,” Berkshires Conference of Historians of Women, June, 2011, Am-herst, MA.

Cynthia Connolly. “The Presence of the Past: Case Studies in Child and Fam-ily Health Policy,” Society for the His-tory of Children and Youth Sixth Biennial Conference: The State of Children, June, 2011, Politics and Policies of Childhood in Global Perspective, New York, NY.

Cynthia Connolly. “The Fever Disap-peared and The Child Improved Imme-diately: Sulfonamides, Penicillin, and the Transformation of Children’s Health Care, 1936-1949,” American Association for the History of Medicine, April, 2011, Philadelphia, PA.

Patricia D’Antonio. “American Nurs-ing: A History of Knowledge, Author-ity and the Meaning of Work,” Nursing Grand Rounds, May 2011, Pennsylvania Hospital.

Patricia D’Antonio. “Exploring People and Places in the History of Nursing,” Hannah Lecture, Canadian Association for the History of Nursing, May 2011, Fredericton, Canada.

Patricia D’Antonio. “Religion and Rec-onciliation,” Berkshires Conference of Historians of Women, June, 2011, Am-herst, MA.

Patricia D’Antonio. “Nursing’s Histori-cal Diversity,” New Careers in Nursing Symposium, March, 2011, Wayne State University College of Nursing, Detroit, WI.

Patricia D’Antonio. Invited Commen-tary, “Is Access to Health Care a Human Right? A Global Perspective,” Global Health Reflections Week, March, 2011, University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing.

Patricia D’Antonio. “Religion and Rec-onciliation,” Berkshires Conference of Historians of Women, June, 2011, Am-herst, MA.

Julie Fairman. “Future of Nursing: Campaign for Education Action,” Uni-versity of Chicago School of Nursing, April, 2011, Chicago, Il.

Julie Fairman. “The Future of Nursing: Campaign for Education Action,” Sum-mit on Nursing Education in Pennsyl-vania, Pennsylvania Higher Education Nursing Schools Association, May, 2011, Harrisburg, PA.

Julie Fairman. “The Future of Nursing,” Pennsylvania Consortium for Advancing Nursing Education, May, 2011, Harris-burg, PA.

Julie Fairman. “History and Health Pol-icy: Nursing for the Future,” University of Navarra, May, 2011, Pamplona, Spain.

Julie Fairman. “Gender and Disasters: Expectations and Realities,” Internation-al Council of Nursing, History Section, May, 2011, Valette, Malta.

Julie Fairman. “Putting the Past Back In: How History Informs Modern Health Policy,” International Council of Nurs-ing, May, 2011, Valette, Malta.

Julie Fairman. “The Right to Write: Nurse Practitioners and Prescriptive Priv-ileges,” Keynote, History of Women’s Health Conference, Pennsylvania Hospi-tal, May, 2011, Philadelphia, PA.

Julie Fairman. “The Future of Nursing:

The Chronicle

Where we Came From and Where we are Going,” AORN National Conference, March, 2011, Philadelphia, PA

Julie Fairman. “The Future of Nursing Leadership,” NLN Immersion Confer-ence, June, 2011, Baltimore, MD.

Amanda Mahoney. “The Nurse in the Agnew Clinic, Mary V. Clymer and the Art of the 19th Century OR,” AORN Na-tional Congress, March, 2011, Philadel-phia, PA.

Linda Maldonado. “Midwives’ Collab-orative Activism in Two Northeast Cit-ies: 1970 to 1990,” History of Women’s Health Conference, April , 2011, Pennsyl-vania Hospital, Philadelphia, PA.

Barbra Mann Wall. Invited lecture, “Doing History,” University of Oviedo, School of Nursing, Spain, May, 2011.

Barbra Mann Wall. “Experiencing the Sacred: Material Culture and the Twen-tieth-Century American Hospital,” Berk-shires Conference of Historians of Wom-en, June, 2011, Amherst, MA

Jean Whelan, Heather Urkuski and Luba Polyak. “Imaging the Nurse: The Photographic Collection of the Philadel-phia General Hospital School of Nurs-ing,” American Association for the Histo-ry of Medicine, April, 2011, Philadelphia, PA.

Jean Whelan, Heather Urkuski and Luba Polyak. “Visualizing the Nurse: The Digital Photographic Collection of Alumnae Association of the Philadelphia General Hospital School of Nursing,” Digital History Lab, Berkshires Confer-ence of Historians of Women, June, 2011, Amherst, MA.

The Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing is now accepting applicants for the following fellowships

Alice Fisher Society FellowshipLillian Sholtis Brunner Fellowship for His-

torical Research in NursingKaren Buhler-Wilkerson Faculty Fellowship

for Historical Research in Nursing

The deadline for these fellowships is December 31, 2011. For more information about the fel-lowships, please visit www.nursing.upenn.edu/history

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existence today: The Hillman and Sands Scholars Programs. These programs have supported more than 250 Penn Nursing students – who would have not otherwise been able to cultivate their nursing leader-ship at Penn. Afaf concluded her remarks by noting the remarkable achievements of Ellen’s career which are deserving of our recognition.

Bates Center Director, Julie Fairman spoke about Ellen’s commitment to ad-vancing the Center’s program. Julie noted that Ellen’s continued involvement with

the Center is highly valued for numer-ous reasons and that Ellen, along with her husband Hank (a former School of Nursing Overseer), have chosen to sup-port the Center in a very concrete and generous manner. Julie called attention to one among many examples of El-len’s support, the Baer Photoarchiving Fund, which has allowed the Center to embark on several innovative and groundbreaking digitization projects.

The Center’s Director Emerita, Joan Lynaugh congratulated Ellen and

recalled how delighted all three found-ers were to find each other at Penn. She noted Ellen’s high energy, creative prob-lem solving and focus on getting things done. But, she said, even though we were working very hard and taking some big chances in developing the Center, we had so much fun working together that it seemed that anything was possible.

Ellen graciously thanked everyone for this significant honor and spoke of her attachment to the Center and its work. She expanded on Joan’s remarks regard-ing the Center’s founding, noting what a pleasure it had all been. As Ellen summa-rized it: “Joan had the ideas, Karen had the contacts, and I knew how to get the funding. Combining those assets with Dean Fagin’s know-how and support made it all happen, and what a wonderful time it has been.”

Ellen’s most recent plans include beginning an “official” retirement from all her positions and focusing on her husband of fifty years, children and four divine granddaughters. For those of us at the Bates Center, we heartily endorse this well-deserved retirement as long as Ellen promises to keep the Bates Center as part of her activities. We congratulate Ellen on her many achievements and welcome the new name of our reading room as a fitting recognition to an incredible scholar, sup-porter and friend.

engaged in an ambitious research pro-gram which focused on investigating the history of women in the workplace and resulted in numerous presentations, arti-cles, books, grants, and awards. With fed-eral funding, she developed the Oncology masters program and an AIDS elective for undergraduate seniors. During her tenure as Adult Health Section Chair, the Critical Care masters program (led by Center Ad-visory Board member Dr. Rosalyn Watts) also began with federal funding. In ad-dition to her many activities and faculty responsibilities during her years at Penn, Ellen managed to squeeze in a NRSA, Post-Doctoral Fellowship in 1986-1987 under the direction of Dr. Charles Rosen-berg, who was then a Professor in Penn’s Department of History & Sociology of Science.

Ellen, aware of the power of the media, recognized the importance of promoting nursing and its history to an audience beyond the academic commu-nity. She spoke on radio, developed and created visual media programs, addressed professional groups and wrote in the na-tional press. She co-authored several op-eds with Suzanne Gordon that were pub-lished in the NY Times, Boston Globe, Philadelphia Inquirer, and LA Times. One of her most important contributions to the national discussion on nursing and health care was a February 23, 1991 solo authored op-ed piece in the New York Times entitled “The Feminist Disdain for Nursing” which presented such a compel-ling argument that it has been reprinted in several other publications.

In 1995, Ellen became a Professor Emerita and with her husband Hank, be-gan dividing her time between her native New York City and Florida. This was not however a typical retirement! Over the years, Ellen maintained an active aca-demic career as a Visiting Professor at New York University, the University of Athens (Greece) where she was also a Fulbright Senior Scholar, the University of Miami and most recently Florida At-lantic University.

During those years, Ellen continued her close association with the Center through her roles as colleague and friend to Center faculty and students, as well as her service on the Center’s Advisory Board. Ellen ably led the Center’s Advi-sory Board as Chair from 2006 to 2011, and continues to serve as an indispensable board member.

The decision to dedicate the Cen-ter’s reading room in Ellen’s honor was an easy one considering her role in estab-lishing the Center, her significant contri-butions to nursing history, as well as her valuable support and guidance. The cer-emony itself was a joyous occasion that managed to remain a complete surprise to Ellen until the dedication. Indeed, Current Advisory Board Chair Neville Strumpf succeeded in keeping Ellen away from the Center prior to the ceremony so that faculty, students, staff and friends could

gather. The reading room and lobby area was arrayed with celebratory decorations, such as a large poster, balloons, and the obligatory red ribbon across the room en-trance. To top it all off, the windows to the reading room were etched in Ellen’s honor. As Ellen made her way down the Center corridor, she was greeted with great applause and cheers that left her greatly moved.

In her welcoming remarks to the at-tendees, Dean Afaf Meleis noted that because of Ellen’s efforts the History Center is now the preeminent center for scholarship in nursing history through the generation of historical knowledge, promotion of scholarship and research of nursing and healthcare history on a global scale. Dean Meleis credited Ellen’s lead-ership and investigations into the history of women in the workplace with truly set-ting the stage for the accomplishments of the Center, which now boasts more than two decades of award-winner research and historical insights.

Afaf also called attention to Ellen’s contributions and partnership with the School during which Ellen has given much of her time, passion, and financial support to drive forward the mission of the School of Nursing both inside and out-side of the History Center. Ellen played a central role in the creation of two of the most critical student scholarships still in

Reading Room, continued5

The Chronicle

2011 Bates Center Fellowships Awarded

Dr. Mary LagerwayWestern Michigan University

Bronson School of Nursing

The Karen Buhler-Wilkerson Faculty Fellowship for Historical Research provid-ed me with funding to carry out a research project aimed at identifying, describing, and analyzing content related to positive and negative eugenics in nursing texts and addressing what such content reveals about eugenic discourses in nursing during the 20th century. My visit involved accessing a wealth of material located at the Barbara Bates Center, including early nursing texts, journals and manuscripts.

During my time at the Center, I consulted a number of archival sources including books on birth control, public and community health, psychiatric nursing, and maternal child nursing. In addition, I identified several other valuable sources through the Nursing Studies Index. As I carried out the study, the research evolved from collecting data from nursing textbooks throughout the 20th century to a more fo-cused analysis of texts from the first half of the century, such as the journal Trained Nurse and Hospital Review.

Through my research I have found that activities surrounding eugenics have had a long history in the United States. Governmental support for negative eugen-ics, for instance, began with the passage of the world’s first law legalizing involuntary sterilization. Although the term eugenics fell out of favor in the mid-20th century following the Holocaust, legal eugenic

The Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing is pleased to announce the following recipients of the 2011 Center Fellowships:

Rima Apple (Professor Emerita, University of Wisconsin) was awarded theLillian Brunner Fellowship for Historical Research in Nursing

Funke Sangodeyi (Doctoral Student, History of Science Department, Harvard University) and Jaime Lapeyre (Doctoral Student, School of Nursing, University of Toronto) were awarded the

Alice Fisher Society Fellowship for Historical Research in Nursing&

Beth Linker (Assistant Professor, History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania) wasawarded the Karen Buhler-Wilkerson Fellowship for Historical Research

The Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing is proud of its fellowship program which offers scholars an opportunity to carry out research at the History Center as well as provides financial support. During the spring of 2011 the Center

hosted two Fellows who describe their research below.

sterilizations continued in the United States into the 1970s. More recently, the Human Genome Project has raised ethical questions about whether enhanced ability to predict heredity disorders may lead to a new, more focused eugenics. Nursing has been largely absent in publications about the history of eugenics, and nursing literature rarely addressed eugenic con-cerns. Beyond the well-documented connections between Margaret Sanger’s birth control advocacy and eugenics, little is known about nursing’s attitudes towards or involvement in the eugenic movement of the first half of the 20th century, and the support of other nursing leaders such as Lillian Wald, Mary Breckinridge, and Lavinia Dock for some aspects of the eugenics program is even less well understood.

My research has found that during the 1920s and early 1930s nursing texts, pre-sented eugenics as holding scientific prom-ise for improving the health of the nation. Nursing accepted the potential of the eugen-ics movement as part of preventive health care to advance the population’s well-being and promoted the need for nurses to be in-formed and up-to-date. My review of NLN Curricular Guidelines found that in 1919 the guidelines recommended that ten hours be devoted to “Modern Social Conditions”

and include content focusing on “feeble-mindedness… degeneracy” and various

other perceived so-cial ills. The guide-lines for 1927 and 1932 named eugen-ics specifically as an expected component of nursing curricula. For example, in the guidelines published in 1927 and 1932, the “Modern Social and Health Movements” section directly ad-dressed heredity by specifying that the history and aims of the “eugenics pro-gram” should be

taught, along with euthenics and Mende-lian genetics. However in later versions of these guidelines, the social and health movements sections is present without any reference to eugenics.

Published accounts of eugenics by nurses mostly promoted the practice as a scientific system that would improve health care. One compelling example of this could be found in Aileen Cleveland Sinclaire’s The Psychology of Nursing, a story of five fictional student nurses and their adjust-ment to nursing school published in 1921. In this text, one student, Mary Anderson, was highly praised for her knowledge and acceptance of “the scientific ideas of eu-genics.” Another example is found in the

Dr. Mary Lagerway

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Fall 2011

2nd edition of Public Health Nursing, by Mary Sewall Gardner, which drew a direct connection between the eugenic practices of the day to those of ancient Spartans leaving disabled children to fend for themselves in the treacherous elements.

Prior to WWII, professional nurs-ing publications portrayed eugenics as providing a positive sci-entific basis for promoting reproduction a m o n g t h e healthy (often of Northern European de-scent) middle to upper class-es and nega-tive eugenics of encourag-ing limited re-production and forced sterilization of the “unfit” (who were often poor, uneducated, and more recent immigrants) as reasonable. Eugenic language was most prevalent in public health and psychiatric nursing texts, and in discussions of poverty, immigrants, cleanliness, and social problems.

In addition to supporting my research on nurses and the 20th century eugenics movement, The Barbara Bates Center’s Karen Buhler-Wilkerson Fellowship al-lowed me to present my findings to faculty and students at a seminar held on March 30, 2011. The discussion following my presentation provided valuable suggestions for exploring additional sources and helped in refining my focus. In addition to sup-porting this particular study, the Fellowship provided me with preliminary data to use in writing a R-03 grant application, “Nursing in the United States Eugenics Movement,” which is currently under review.

Julie DavidowDepartment of History

University of Pennsylvania

I was delighted to receive the 2011 Al-ice Fisher Society Fellowship for Historical Research in Nursing, which enabled me to research the Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing’s extensive archives. The Center’s collections contain critical resources that I have used for my dissertation research on African-American citizenship and politics in Philadelphia between 1865 and 1920. I was fortunate

to be able to invest the majority of my time in investigating two key Center col-lections: The Starr Centre Association of Philadelphia and the Alumnae Association of the Mercy-Douglass Hospital School of Nursing.

Philadelphia presents a unique location in which to research African-American

political activities and citizenship roles. Throughout the last third of the 19th cen-tury, Philadelphia’s b lack popu la t ion swelled because of an increase in southern migration by those seeking to escape dis-crimination. Because of this, by 1900 Phila-delphia claimed the largest black popula-tion of any city outside

the South. In Philadelphia, among the narrow alleys and crowded homes of the city’s poorest neighborhoods, African-American residents met white Republican leaders and reformers head on in a struggle to define the meaning of black citizenship in the late 19th century. The encounters between northern reform organizations and working class black residents have been considered mostly from the perspective of white and black middle-class activists. By conflating black politics at the end of the 19th century with middle-class values, historians have largely missed the activities of African-Americans in-volved in the political machines of the urban north. My research seeks to illuminate this story.

I began my Fel-lowship by review-ing the Starr Centre Association of Phil-adelphia collection which chronicles the evolution of a settle-ment house founded by a group of social reformers at the turn of the 20th century in Philadelphia’s seventh ward. This neigh-borhood was a center of African-American population and migration and the locus of W.E.B. DuBois’ research for The Phila-delphia Negro. The Starr Centre offered the area’s residents a number of services,

including a penny savings bank, a coal col-lective, free library, day nursery and other activities for the neighborhood’s children.

Among the papers of the Starr Cen-tre, I found evidence that there was in-tense interest in the impact of increased African-American migration from the South in Philadelphia. Reformers, both black and white, questioned the political and cultural influence of a large number of African-American southerners settling in a crowded northern neighborhood and sought consultation as they adjusted to black migration. Starr Centre leaders in-vited Booker T. Washington, for example, in 1899 to discuss the “negro problem” in the north. As one Starr Centre manager put it in announcing Washington’s visit, “The condition of the Negro in the Northern City involves questions of so much importance to the city…and presents such special difficulties that it has been thought best to seek the benefit of general discussion and advice before developing (the Starr Centre’s) plans further.”

The second collection I investigated, that of the Alumnae Association of the Mercy-Douglass School of Nursing, con-tributed further to my understanding of the ways in which young African-American women struggled to find an economic toehold in the industrial north. The col-lection includes the records of two health care institutions serving the Philadelphia African-American community: the Fred-

erick Douglass Memorial Hospital and the Mercy Hospital. Opened in 1895, the Frederick Douglass Hospital School of Nursing was the first African-American nursing school in Philadelphia. In 1948, Douglass Hospital merged with Mercy

Julie Davidow

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Update on the Nursing History Section of the International Council of Nurses

There was excitement in the air on May 4 during the Interna-

tional Council of Nurses (ICN) 2011 Conference in Malta when the ICN Nursing History Section held its sec-ond meeting. Originating in 2009 at the ICN conference in Durban, South Africa, the Nursing History Section aims to increase networking opportunities for historians of nursing from around the world. (See Vol.21, No.1 The Chronicle) Based on the tremendous outpouring of interest demonstrated at the first section meeting, the conference in Malta built on the work begun in South Africa where nurses from all over the world met. Led by Bates Center Associate Director, Dr. Barbra Mann Wall, ICN’s Nursing History Session was a tremendous success.

The Malta meeting featured the opportunity for established researchers, Dr. Christine Hallett from England, Center Director Dr. Julie Fairman, Dr. Susanne Malchau Dietz from Denmark, and Catherine Sharples from Malta to present their research to the conferees. Attendees at the session enjoyed thought provoking talks in which speakers discussed the incorporation of gender and race into historical research, the interpretation of various texts, the advantages and disadvantages of doing biography, and the beginnings of the Knights of Malta as a nursing order in the Middle Ages. Section attendees came from Spain, Greece, Taiwan, South Africa, Tanzania, Sweden, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Togo, Ethiopia, New Zealand, as well as other countries.

The outcome of the meeting was the expansion of a network of international scholars in nursing history that can lead to joint historical research projects, thereby producing a significant and unique body of scholarship. A major goal of the section is that the collaborative work between scholars of different nations will offer schools of nursing and professional organizations a framework for moving their educational and research enterprises forward.

We look forward to future Section meetings in the coming years and will let Chronicle readers know of events as they are planned.

Hospital, also an African-American institu-tion, to form the Mercy-Douglass Hospital and School of Nursing.

At the dawn of the 20th century, most black women in Philadelphia worked in domestic service and nursing provided an alternative, more prestigious employment path, if only for a small number. The segre-gated educational system in place dictated that African-American women pursue their education in black institutions. The reputations of both Douglass and Mercy Hospital’s schools of nursing meant that future nurses eagerly sought admittance to their programs. Mary Eliza Laughlin of Greensboro, North Carolina, for example, applied to the nursing program in 1916. “It will be allright (sic) any time you send I will be ready,” 17-year-old Mary wrote to the surgeon-in-chief at Douglass Hospital in October 1916. Admitted to the school in 1917 Mary passed her final examinations in May 1920. Unfortunately, the record is silent on the scope of Mary’s career after graduation.

In addition to the opportunity to ex-plore several key collections, the Bates Cen-ter offered the occasion for me to present a draft of a section of my dissertation at the Center’s seminar series on March 16, 2011. The feedback from faculty and students helped sharpen my thinking about my topic and steered me toward additional research possibilities I had not yet explored.

With my research now nearly at an end, my focus is to complete my disserta-tion during the upcoming academic year.

(L to R) Julie Fairman, Concessa M. Nsanze, Susanne Malchau Dietz and Barbra Mann Wall

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Fall 2011

Bates Center Faculty Present at International Conference held by the Robert Bosch Foundation’s Institute for the History of Medicine

Bates Nursing History Center Welcomes School of Nursing Community to an Open House

This past spring, the Bates Center sponsored a lively event that kicked off the Center’s 25th anniversary celebration. “Breaking for History” showcased

Center treasures to more than 60 students, staff, and faculty who enjoyed cupcakes and refreshments after viewing many of the Center’s holdings and artifacts. One of the items that caught everyone’s attention was the Florence Nightingale chest which Bates Center Founding Director Dr. Joan Lynaugh opened up for visitors. As Joan recounted, the chest belonged originally to Florence Nightingale who presented it as a gift to Alice Fisher, the first Chief Nurse of the Philadelphia Hospital (later Philadelphia General Hospital). The chest captivated the interest of everyone, especially as it holds several stones Nightingale found next to an Egyptian sphinx on one of her many trips abroad. The stones beguiled Nightingale so much she helped herself to them, taking them back to England with her where they eventual found their way to Philadelphia via Alice Fisher!

Other collection items which generated attention and com-ments were photographs from the Starr Centre Association in South Philadelphia, a philanthropic organization that emphasized maternal and child health initiatives. The Starr Centre photos were particularly popular with those interested in child health. Nurse postcards from the Center’s Helfand Collection offered a unique look at the way nurses have been portrayed over the years. A student register from the Albert Einstein Medical Center School of Nursing, formally The Jewish Hospital Training School for Nurses provided a glimpse at early 20th century nursing. And one of the Centers’ most valuable holdings, the diary of Mary Clymer—the nurse depicted in Thomas Eakin’s Agnew Clinic rounded out the displayed items and kept attendees so fascinated they needed to be reminded of the food!

The Bates Center still has a plethora of other items perfect for exhibiting many of which will be on display at our next Open House, October 20th from 2PM to 4PM. For further information e-mail nhistory@nursing.upenn.edu or call 215-898-4502.

Ellen D. Baer Reading Room display during Open House event at the Center

On May 12th and 13th, 2011, Drs. Julie Fairman, Patricia D’Antonio, and Bar-bra Mann Wall were invited speakers to

the 2nd International Conference on Nursing History in Berlin, Germany. Organized by the Institute for the History of Medicine of the Robert Bosch Foundation, Stuttgart, the conference was held in Berlin’s Medical Historical Museum. The overall theme of the confer-ence, “Conflicts in Nursing History”, focused on four distinct sub-themes: conflicts and religion; conflicts during war; conflicts and institutions; and conflicts with nurses, patients, doctors, and families. Center As-sociate Director Barbra Mann Wall presented a paper entitled “Religion and Health Policy in 20th Century America, with a Comparison to Europe,” Center Fel-low Patricia D’Antonio presented “Conflict and Coop-eration in American Nursing” and Center Director Ju-lie Fairman spoke on “The Right to Write: Nurse Prac-titioners and the Politics of Practice.” This invitational conference which brought together scholars of nursing history from Germany, England, Austria, Denmark, the

Netherlands, and the United States, created an impressive forum for the development of comparative perspectives in nursing history.

Bosch Conference Attendees at the Berlin Medical Historical Museum

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This May, Bates Center doctoral student Keith C. Mages successfully defended his dissertation Identity from the Shelves: Nurses, Libraries, and the Bellevue Classification System, 1934-1969. This historical study examined the Bellevue

Classification System (BCS), named after New York City’s famed Bellevue School of Nursing, a system of library classification created specifically for the intellectual control of libraries within hospital-based nurse training schools. Devised and completed dur-ing the early 1930’s by Bellevue instructor and nurse Ann Doyle, with the assistance of librarian-consultant Mary Casamajor, the BCS was modeled upon a decimal plan, much like the Dewey Decimal System, with major subjects divided into ten main classes.

The history of the BCS provides a unique angle to analyze and appreciate nursing’s intellectual and professional identity development. Examined as a cultural object, the BCS emerged as a distinctive intellectual platform that reflected a particular moment in time and nursing’s particularly gendered relationship to knowledge. Dr. Mages’ research shows how nurse educators of the early to mid-20th century conceptualized the library as the physical manifestation of nursing’s intellect. To these individuals, the library provided not only access to knowledge, but also proof of nursing’s independent knowledge reserves.

Other classification systems of the era did not capture the practice, or the mind, of the early 20th century nurse. However, these systems, which included the Dewey Deci-mal Classification System, Library of Congress Classification System, Ballard (Boston Medical Library) Classification System, and the National Health Library Classification System, served Ann Doyle as both catalysts and reference points. The Bellevue Classi-fication System thus provided Doyle the opportunity to construct and promote a distinct viewpoint of nursing knowledge. Specifically, the BCS allowed Doyle to portray nursing as discipline with an intellectual, and professional, distinctly gendered identity.

This research spanned the years 1934 until 1969 when the Bellevue School of Nursing ceased functioning as an independent educational institution, phasing out its program. Hunter College of the City University of New York transferred its baccalaureate nursing program to the Bellevue facility, and at the same time became a School within the Col-lege, the Hunter-Bellevue School of Nursing. And, it was not just the Bellevue School of Nursing which ceased to operate. By the year 1969, the Bellevue Classification System had also transitioned, from an active symbol of nursing’s intellectual and professional identity to a vestige of nursing’s fading past.

Dr. Mages research contributes greatly to our understanding of a critical yet under-studied aspect of nursing’s history. Congratulations Keith on this significant study and impressive achievement!

Bates Center Holds Symposium on

Bioethics

On April 27th, The Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing

began its 25th anniversary festivities with a symposium entitled Bioethics: History Informing the Future. Cosponsored by the University of Pennsylvania Office of the Provost and the School of Nursing, the widely popular event brought togeth-er a diverse selection of scholars whose research has focused on ethics in health care and other interdisciplinary fields. The event highlighted the globalized im-plications of bioethics across race, class, and gender divides.

The symposium began with intro-ductions by the University of Pennsylva-nia School of Nursing Dean Afaf I. Mel-eis, PhD, DrPS(hon), FAAN and Center Director Julie Fairman, PhD, RN, FAAN. Dean Meleis warmly offered anniversary congratulations to the Center for 25 years at the School of Nursing and also thanked the Office of the Provost for their support of the event. Dr. Fairman then spoke in further detail about the founding of the Center and its mission before introduc-ing the symposium’s keynote speakers: Susan M. Reverby, PhD and Jonathan Moreno, PhD.

Dr. Reverby (Marian Butler McLean Professor in the History of Ideas, Welles-ley College), a longtime friend and col-laborator at the Center, opened the sym-posium with a presentation entitled “Es-caping Melodrama: A View of History and Bioethics From the Perspective of Studies in Tuskeegee and Guatemala.” In her talk, Reverby recounted the events surrounding her research on the U.S Pub-lic Health Service study in Guatemala that occurred from 1946 to 1948. The study is of course infamous today because men and women were deliberately given syph-ilis. Her investigation led to a U.S. gov-ernment response from the Secretaries of the Departments of State and Health and Human Services and an apology from President Obama to President Colom of Guatemala. Further, President Obama es-tablished a Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, with Uni-versity of Pennsylvania President Amy Gutman as Chair, to explore the historical context of the research in Guatemala and

(L to R) Barb Mann Wall, Julie Fairman, Pat D’Antonio, Joan Lynaugh, and Beth Linker join Keith Mages (center) in Ellen D. Baer Reading Room following his sucessful dissertation defense.

The Chronicle

Keith Mages Successfully Defends Dissertation

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Fall 2011

current human subject protections. The Commission recently released its report on the historical investigation and is now turning its attention to its ongoing work in reviewing contemporary standards that protect human research participants. (For more information on the Presiden-tial Commission visit http://bioethics.gov/). Reverby spoke to how she came to uncover this story and also to the respon-sibilities of historians to not just provide the facts but also the context of what they investigate and the ways in which to un-derstand such horrific deeds.

The Symposium’s second keynote speaker, University of Pennsylvania Pro-fessor Jonathan D. Moreno, PhD (David and Lyn Silfen University Professor of Ethics; History and Sociology and Sci-ence) took a different approach to the topic of bioethics with his presentation “Mind Wars: Brain Research and National De-fense.” Covering similar subjects as his book of the same name, Moreno detailed US military and national security initia-tives of the latter half of the 20th century to the present day that have focused on neuroscience, in particular the ways in which the brain can be manipulated, and the ethical implications of this coercion. Drawing startling parallels between cine-matic treatments of military mind-control (i.e. John Frankenheimer’s The Manchu-rian Candidate) and real-life operations, such as the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency, Moreno illustrated that

This September we witnessed a long awaited event with the lauch of Nursing, History and

Health Care (NHHC). The site was the creation of Center Assistant Director Jean Whelan and the late Bates Center Direc-tor Karen Buhler-Wilkerson, who sev-eral years ago came up with the idea to develop a site devoted to nursing history that would document, analyze and place in historical context the most compelling and controversial political social issues influencing the provision of nursing care.

The NHHC project took shape over several years and received significant funding via a National Institute of Health, National Library of Medicine, Scholarly Work in Biomedicine and Health Grant, (1 G13 LM008295) and a University of Pennsylvania Research Foundation grant. The American Academy of Nursing’s Ex-pert Panel on Nursing History advised on the project throughout the duration of the project.

Creation of the website was an ambi-tious project undertaken by Bates Center faculty and one which they found to be of great value in promoting the impor-tance of nursing history to understanding the American health care system. As both the public and scholars depend more and more on obtaining information electroni-cally, a significant presence on the inter-net is essential for historians of nursing and health care.

Website content was provided by today’s leading nursing historical schol-

A New Website, NURSING, HISTORY, AND HEALTHCARE

Launched

ethical dilemmas found in the latest Sci-Fi bestsellers are faced on a daily basis by our nation’s military.

Following Moreno’s presentation, University of Pennsylvania Provost Vincent Price, PhD, moderated a lively response panel featuring the School of Nursing’s own Connie Ulrich, PhD, RN, FAAN (Associate Professor of Nursing; and Associate Professor of Bioethics, De-partment of Medical Ethics, School of Medicine), Renee C. Fox, PhD (Professor Emerita, Sociology Annenberg Professor Emerita of the Social Sciences, Univer-sity of Pennsylvania) and Ronald Bayer, PhD (Professor, Department of Socio-medical Sciences, HIV Center for Clini-cal Behavioral Studies at the New York Psychiatric Institute and Columbia Uni-versity). The panelists brought a wealth of knowledge on issues of bioethics to the forefront and created an environment for engaging discussion.

The symposium closed with a recep-tion that was marked by a celebratory air as faculty, staff, and students gathered to mark the occasion and prepare for the year-long special events at the Bates Cen-ter. To all who came to the symposium and shared in the festivities, we thank you and hope that you will join us as we gather on April 14, 2012 for So . . . What Are We Doing Here?, a daylong sym-posium that will highlight the work and legacy of one of the Center’s co-found-ers, Joan Lyanugh, PhD, RN, FAAN.

(L to R) Dean Afaf Meleis, Renee C. Fox, Provost Vincent Price, Susan Reverby, Ronald Bayer, Jonathan Moreno, Connie Ulrich, and Center Director Julie Fairman gather during the anniversary symposium.

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The Chronicle

Dr. Linda H. AikenAlumnae Association of the Mercy Dou-glass School of NursingDr. Ellen Davidson BaerHenry P. Baer, EsquireMs. Susan BaerMr. J. Mark BaiadaMrs. Ann C. BaiadaJack D. Barchas, MDDr. Israel BartalDr. Nira BartalDr. Alice J. BaumgartDr. Elizabeth M. BearMiss Rita T. BeattyMrs. Susan Weiss BehrendDr. Jeanne Quint BenolielDr. Nettie BirnbachDr. Eleanor Crowder BjoringDr. Ann Marie Walsh BrennanDr. Barbara BrodieDr. Lillian Sholtis BrunnerMr. and Mrs. John C. BurnhamMs. Arline CancellieriDr. Barbara ChamberlainDr. Pamela Frances CiprianoMrs. Beryl Boardman ClearyMs. Jacqueline A. ConklinDr. Cynthia A. ConnollyMs. Sarah T. CunninghamMs. Alicia J. CurtinDr. Patricia O. D'AntonioJoseph C. D'Antonio, MDDr. Anne J. DavisMrs. Eleanor L. DavisMr. Harold M. DavisDr. Dorothy J. Del BuenoDr. Lynore D. DesiletsDr. Lynne M. DunphyMr. James T. DunphyMr. Robert J. DuscherEpiscopal Hospital Nurses Alumni As-sociationDr. Jonathan ErlenDr. Claire M. FaginMr. Samuel FaginDr. Julie Schauer FairmanRonald M. Fairman, MDMs. Mary Jane FentonMs. Patricia I. FischerDr. M. Louise FitzpatrickDr. Marilyn E. FloodCatherine C. Freeman Family TrustMs. Catherine C. Freeman

Ms. Kathleen F. GenderDr. Carol P. GermainMr. Richard E. GingrichMs. Carol K. GrossDr. Jennifer L. GunnMs. Mary S. GutshallMs. Isabella S. HarrisonDr. Laura Lucia HaymanMr. Richard L. HaymanMrs. Patricia A. HeffnerMs. Loretta Ashley HeltonMrs. Beth HelwigMrs. Hannah L. HendersonDr. Eleanor K. HerrmannMr. and Mrs. Stephen W. HoltMr. Vincent HughesMs. Karen JacobsMrs. Theresa F. JudgeMrs. Dorothy Goldstein KapensteinMs. Julie KarcisDr. Arlene W. KeelingMr. James R. KeiserMrs. Josephine D. KeiserMrs. Alda E. KerschnerMr. Roy KerschnerMs. Jeanne J. KiefnerMs. Marcia E. KingMs. Susan M. KjellinDr. Mary Ann Krisman-ScottDr. Norma M. LangMr. Glenn LangCharles E. Letocha, MDDr. Sandra B. LewensonDr. Jing LiMrs. Cheryl L. LichnerMrs. Barbara LundDr. Joan E. LynaughMs. Ruth ManchesterDr. Diane J. MancinoMrs. Barbara Barden MasonMr. Jerome M. MatezMrs. Marian B. MatezDr. E. Ann MatterMs. Ruth B. McKentyDr. Therese MeehanMs. Adrian S. MelissinosDr. Andrew P. MezeyDr. Mathy MezeyMs. Lana L. MillerMs. Mary Alice MusserMr. John L. ParascandolaSteven J. Peitzman, MDDr. Robert V. Piemonte

Dr. Rosemary C. PolomanoJane Benson Pond, RNMs. Laura M. RandarDr. Elizabeth A. ReedyMs. Elizabeth H. RiceDr. Sylvia RinkerMr. Theodore R. RobbDr. Deborah A. SampsonMrs. Alice B. SavastioDr. John A. SavastioDr. Cynthia C. ScalziMr. Norman SchorrMrs. Thelma M. SchorrDr. Suzanne C. SmeltzerMs. Janet E. SmithMs. Linda SnodgrassMiss Nancy T. SnyderSolomon & Sylvia Bronstein FoundationMrs. Beverly Peril SternDr. Rosemary A. StevensMrs. Norma H. StewartRobert J. Stewart, Esq.Ms. Jo F. StowDr. Neville E. StrumpfDr. Janet TheophanoMrs. Christine Irene TobackMr. Jeffrey M. TobackDr. Lorraine TulmanAlan B. Tulman, MDDr. Nancy M. ValentineMr. D. W. Van DusenMrs. Elizabeth E. Van DusenVisiting Nurse Association of Greater PhiladelphiaMrs. Betty M. VydraDr. Barbra M. WallDr. Linda V. WalshMs. Mary McCormack WaltonDr. Rosalyn J. WattsDr. Emma S. WeigleyMs. Mary J. WelfareMs. Claire J. WeltyDr. Jean C. WhelanMark Gilbert, MDCharles J. Wolf III, MDDr. Zane Robinson Wolf

To donate to the Center, please visit www.nursing.upenn.edu/historygiving or use the donation card on page 8.

The Barbara Bates Center for The Study of The History of Nursing thanks all of its donors for their generosity and appreciates their continued support.

Donors June 30, 2010 – July 1, 2011

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Fall 2011

Meet Center’s New Administrative Coordinator

In November 2010, the Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing welcomed Tiffany Collier as its new Administrative Coordinator. Tiffany joined the Center following the retirement of Betsy Weiss, the Center’s previous Administra-

tive Assistant. In coming to the Center, Tiffany has brought a wide range of professional and academic expertise that has greatly benefited coordination and implementation of several new Center projects and events.

For instance, in April 2011 Tiffany coordinated and planned the unveiling ceremony for the Center’s Ellen D. Baer reading room (see story page 1) and also assisted with the 25th Anniversary symposium Bioethics: History Informing the Future (see page 10). Throughout the academic year, Tiffany coordinates the Center’s seminar series that is facilitated by As-sistant Director Jean Whelan. Indeed as Jean has noted, “Tiffany has been instrumental in the Center’s seminars and its expansion into webinars and other technological initiatives.”

Tiffany’s interest and background in graphic design, writing, and editing has been of great use to the Center. For example, Tif-fany has worked on several Center publications since her arrival, including the Strategic Plan and The Chronicle, working firsthand on the newsletter’s redesign. Through her educational background, which includes degrees in the Humanities and Literature from the University of Pennsylvania and West Chester University respectively, Tiffany has conducted a number of research projects focused on postcolonial literature and cinema which she hopes to continue at the doctoral level in the near future.

And Tiffany’s value to the Center extends well beyond her humanities expertise. Since coming to the Center, Tiffany has engaged in a careful review of Center expenditures and has aggressively pursued ways to reduce expenses incurred by the Center. For example, thanks to Tiffany’s efforts we are able to publish and mail The Chronicle you are currently reading at a much lower cost!

As a self-professed bibliophile, Tiffany has taken an interest in uncovering the Center’s known and hidden book collections. Ac-cording to Tiffany, the Center’s rare book collection is a “veritable treasure trove” that highlights the evolution of nursing history and health care in America and she hopes that more researchers will utilize these works in the future in addition to the archival collections. Indeed, as Tiffany states, “making the Center’s collections and books accessible to as many people as possible” is one of her main goals in working at the Center.

Bates Center faculty and staff have been thrilled to work along with Tiffany as she coordinates and improves Center programs and activities. We feel empowered by her expertise and ease in carrying out projects. We welcome Tiffany and hope she has enjoyed her first year with the Center as much as we have enjoyed having her on the staff!

Tiffany Collier

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The Chronicle

Crucial to the success of the Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nurs-

ing is the presence of a number of vol-unteers who have helped the Center run over its 25 years history. Volunteers bring skills, experience and a willingness to do-nate a precious commodity, their time, to help the Center operate smoothly. The Bates Center is fortunate in securing the services of a strong cadre of volunteers from the beginning of its existence.

Stephanie Stachniewicz, former Di-rector of the School of Nursing and Nurs-ing Practice at the Philadelphia General Hospital (PGH) organized the first group of volunteers shortly after the opening of the Center. Stephanie, one of the individ-uals highly involved in establishing the Center, enabled the Center’s accession of the Alumni Association of the Philadel-phia General Hospital Training School for Nurses Photograph Collection (1885-1977), the first and one of the largest collections acquired by the Center. This collection contains over 3000 images of the famous PGH from the late 1800s to its closing in 1977 and is one of the most valued collections held by the Center.

Stephanie, along with PGH alum Helen Dopsovic, spent endless hours cleaning, identifying and organizing the photographs in the collection. This work, carried out in the Center’s initial years, has been used to great advantage in times that are more recent. Images from the PGH photograph collection are currently the focus of a Center project carried out in collaboration with the Schoenberg Center for Electronic Text and Image at the University’s Van Pelt Library, which will digitize and make accessible on the internet the photos contained in the col-lection. Once completed, this project will represent the first major digitization effort for the Bates Center. The early and very diligent work of Stephanie and Helen, who carefully identified and titled each image, shortened considerably the work of the digitization project.

Stephanie and Helen also worked on several other major collections in the ear-ly days of the Center. They were joined in this volunteer endeavor by Irene Mat-thews, a retired nurse and Edith Nunan, retired PGH School of Nursing librarian, who contributed not only their time to the Center by doing “detective” work on

several complex historical research proj-ects but also donated valuable historical material. These early volunteers were in-strumental in getting the work of the Cen-ter up and running and in improving the quality of life in the Center.

The Center was equally lucky when longtime volun-teer Rita Beatty offered her time and services. Ms. Beatty, a retired nurse, served during World War II and the Korean War as a Navy nurse. Her post-service ca-reer was in public health and com-munity health services. Rita kept active in her retirement by participating in nursing research and lecturing in the nursing administra-tion program at the School of Nursing. In 1992, she began volunteering at the Bates Center by processing and preserving sev-eral collections. Among the collections on which Rita worked were the Starr Center Association of Philadelphia collection and the records of the Visiting Nurse As-sociation of Greater Philadelphia as well as several smaller collections. One col-lection in which Rita held a particular interest was the Biographical Sketches of Women Prominent in Nursing manu-scripts. She was intrigued with the history of Martha Mineva Franklin, the first Afri-can American nurse to graduate from the Women’s Hospital Training School for Nurses located in Philadelphia in 1898. In 1908, Franklin was a founding member of the National Association for Colored Graduate Nurses, which was dedicated to promoting the standards and welfare of black nurses and breaking down ra-cial discrimination in the profession. At the time, African American nurses were barred from most nurse professional as-sociations. As she researched more, Rita discovered that as Franklin had no surviv-ing relatives when she died in 1968, her name was never inscribed on the family grave. Rita, who is someone who knows how to get things done, was responsible

Volunteers at the Bates Nursing History Center: Past and Present

for insuring that Franklin’s name was in-scribed on her gravesite in Meriden, Con-necticut in the 1990s.

Volunteers take on many different roles at the Center, oftentimes switch-ing their roles and focus. Joel Sartorius worked as a consultant to the Center ad-

vising and assisting with the massive boxing and storing of Center materials required for the temporary relocation of materials as part of the 2007 School of Nursing’s renovation. Joel’s previous work before his retirement as a Librarian in the Rare Book Department of the Free Library was a tremendous asset in this job. Today, Joel continues to volunteer at the Center as “Photographer-in-Chief” taking pictures at Center events, many of which are

featured in The Chronicle. Recently, Joel donated

to the Center one of the cameras he no longer uses. We gratefully acknowledge this donation and anticipate taking many priceless (and beautiful) photos of Center faculty and staff!

In the Fall 2009 edition of The Chronicle, we featured current volunteer Donna Ostroff. And, recently we wel-comed two volunteers, Virginia Camer-on and Thora Williams graduates of the Episcopal Hospital School of Nursing. Ginny and Thora have graciously offered to assist in the processing of the recently acquired Episcopal Hospital and School of Nursing collection. Stay tuned for the next edition of The Chronicle, which will feature their stories.

We thank all of the Bates Center vol-unteers, past and present, for their time. Volunteers contribute greatly to the Cen-ter’s functioning and add great value to our work. For those interested in volun-teer opportunities at the Bates Nursing History Center please e-mail nhistory@nursing.upenn.edu or call 215-898-4502.

Martha Mineva Franklin’s gravestone

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Fall 2011

Bates Center Launches Fall Seminar Series with a New Twist

As the academic year begins, the Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing looks forward to its yearly Seminar Series. The Bates Center Seminar Series provides a venue for cross-disciplinary scholars to present topics of interest to the his-tory of nursing and the health care community. Through the years, the Center has hosted researchers not only from the University, but also from other institutions such as the University of Virginia, Leibniz University of Hanover in Germany, and Kings College in London to name a few. This year we will welcome scholars from as far away as Israel, Finland, and Germany. The diversity of speakers and topics has always provoked thought-ful discussion and insight.

Last spring, in response to requests from those unable to physically attend the seminars, the Center began broadcasting the seminars over the web. The Center webinars have brought the intimate seminars to a global audience, and there are now plans underway to expand the series even further to promote interactive dialogue. We welcome all attendees, both in person and electronically to join us for our upcoming dates!

Please see the 2011 - 2012 Bates Seminar Series schedule below

Fall SeriesSeptember 21, 2011 Speaker: Jim Higgins (Kutztown University)Title: “Philadelphia’s Saviours: Nurses and the 1918 Influenza Epidemic” October 5, 2011 Speaker: Maiju Lehmijoki-Gardner (Loyola University, Maryland)Title: “Food in Religions and their Ethical Practices - Contemporary Implications of Ancient Traditions.”

October 19, 2011 Speaker: Emily Abel (UCLA)Title: Institutionalizing the Incurable: Care for Sufferers of Fatal Chronic Diseases between 1880 and 1940

November 2, 2011 Speaker: Arlene Keeling (University of Virginia)Title: The Second Line of Defense: Philadelphia Nurses and the Influenza Epidemic, 1918

November 16, 2011 Speaker: Jessica Clark (Temple University)Title:Women’s History in House Museums: How Using Local Nursing Archives Can Improve Their Histories

November 30, 2011 Speaker: Hilary Acquino (Albright College)Title: Leona Baumgartner: Crusader for the Public’s Health – How the First Female Health Commissioner Transformed the Health of New Yorkers

Spring SeriesJanuary 18, 2012 Speaker: Nira Bartal (Hadassah University, Jerusalem, Israel)

February 1, 2012 Speaker: Susan Brandt (Temple University)

February 15, 2012 Speaker: Rima Apple (University of Wisconsin)

February 29, 2012 Speaker: David Rosner (Columbia University)

March 28, 2012 Speaker: Susanne Kreutzer (University of Osnabruck, Germany)

April 18, 2012 Speaker: Beth Linker (University of Pennsylvania)Titles for the Spring Series will be announced later in the year. Please check Center website at www.nursing.upenn.edu/history.

NHHC website, continued

ars. From overviews on public health nurses to an examination on the increases in baccalaureate nursing degrees in the twentieth century, NHHC covers a broad spectrum of topics that will aid scholars on a global level. In addition, there is a groundbreaking segment entitled “Histo-ry of Nursing Timeline: 1700-1869” that provides extensive background informa-tion on the American nursing movement.

Kudos for insuring the release of the website also go to designer Rachel Eschenbach, Dan Carl, Donna Milici, Tim Blake, and Eric Stern of the School of Nursing’s Office of Technology and Information Systems and the Office of Communications’ Victoria Smith. Bates Center Administrative Coordinator Tiffa-ny Collier and work study student Joanne Mantilla were also instrumental is see-ing that the site was up and running and looked great!

Please visit NHHC at www.nursing.upenn.edu/nhhc. Feedback and com-ments on the Nursing, History and Health Care website can be forwarded to nhhc@nursing.upenn.edu

Like Us On

The Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing has joined Facebook. Visit our page to learn more about the Center, view photos, and keep up-to-date on all of our activities.h t t p : / / w w w. f a c e b o o k . c o m /PennNursingBatesHistoryCenter

Cover photo: Mercy Hospital School of Nursing, Class of 1936

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Barbara Bates Center for The Study of The History of NursingUniversity of Pennsylvania

school of nUrsing

claire M. fagin hall (2U)418 cUrie BoUlevard

PhiladelPhia, Pa 19104-4217

CALENDARThe American Association for the History of Nursing (AAHN) and the Georgia Southern University are co-sponsoring the Association’s 29th Annual Conference, September 27-29, 2012 in Savannah, Georgia. Abstracts for paper and poster presentations accepted until January 15, 2012. Please submit abstracts to abstracts@AAHN.org. Additional information about the AAHN and the conference can be obtained at www.aahn.org.

International Nursing History Conference, August 9-11, 2012. The Danish Society of Nursing History and the Danish Museum of Nursing History in affiliation with the Southern University of Denmark and the UC Danish Deaconess Foundation are pleased to invite scholars to an international conference on the History of Nursing in Kolding, Jutland. Abstracts will be accepted until November 15, 2011. Please send abstracts by e-mail to Mariann Bay mbay@health.sdu.dk.

2012 Annual CAHN/ACHN Conference, June 15-17, 2012 will be held in Medicine Hat, Alberta. The conference theme is: Places and People’s Health: Exploring

Nursing in Diverse Contexts. Abstracts (350 words max) will be accepted until December 1, 2011. Please include a one page CV with the abstract. Please submit e-mail abstracts (strongly preferred) to geertje.boschma@nursing.ubc.ca. If submitting by mail, please send one original and 3 blind copies to Geertje Boschma, UBC School of Nursing, T201 2211 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver V6T 2B5, Canada. For further information on the conference contact Florence Melchior (florence@mhc.ab.ca) or visit the website at: http://cahn-achn.ca/

The Southern Association for the History of Medicine and Science (SAHMS) invites paper proposals for its 14th Annual Meeting on March 2-3, 2012, at the Emory Conference Center in Atlanta, Georgia. SAHMS welcomes papers on the history of medicine and science, broadly construed to encompass historical, literary, anthropological, philosophical and sociological approaches to health care and science including race, disabilities and gender studies. To submit proposals, please visit the online submission site at: http://www.uab.edu/lister/sahms. Abstracts will be accepted until Oct 15, 2011.

International Nursing Conference, Jerusalem, Israel June 4 - 7, 2012. Nursing at the Hadassah Hebrew University Medical Center and the Canadian Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario (RNAO) will jointly hold their first international nursing conference entitled: “Nursing: Caring to Know, Knowing to Care.” For more information, please visit the conference website at http://israel.rnao.ca/.

The American Association for the History of Medicine (AAHM) 85th Annual Meeting, Baltimore, Maryland, April 26 – 29, 2012 The annual meeting of the American Association for the History of Medicine is a fun event where opportunities to hear and discuss scholarly papers on a broad range of subjects are blended with social activities that encourage networking. Please visit the AAHM website, www.histmed.org for more information.

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