Access the full text.
Sign up today, get DeepDyve free for 14 days.
Loading next page...
/lp/springer-publishing/historiographic-essay-the-legacy-of-domesticity-nursing-in-early-eHRN7GkOEZ
- Publisher
- Springer Publishing
- ISSN
- 1062-8061
- eISSN
- 1938-1913
- DOI
- 10.1891/1062-8061.1.1.229
- Publisher site
- See Article on Publisher Site
Abstract
HISTORIOGRAPHIC ESSAY The Legacy of Domesticity Nursing in Early Nineteenth-Century America PATRICIA O'BRIEN D'ANTONIO The heart of nursing is, and has been, the care of the sick. Through most of history, the responsibility for nursing has rested with women: with mothers, daughters, sisters, and neighbors who cared for their sick children, spouses, parents, and friends in the home. Here lies the domestic roots of modem nursing practice. Prior to the establishment of formal training schools, and well before the drive toward professional status through the registration movement, nursing revolved around the image and the ac tivities of mothers caring for the sick in their own homes. In the domestic world of the early nineteenth century, the time and place where this story begins, the nursing of family and friends took place at home because most sickness, birthing, and dying centered .in the home. Further, in a historical world where women's domestic duties were tied tightly to notions about women's innate capabilities and their loving responsibilities, such nursing was an almost unquestioned part of their lives. The care of a sick family member, in the words of one chronicler of the early nineteenth-century domestic world, was to be "commended" to
Journal
Nursing History Review – Springer Publishing
Published: Jan 1, 1993