Beyond the received narrative: finding the voice for a history of all nurses

Like all history, the story of nursing reflects the values and cultural constraints of its authors. Over the past century, the international leadership of nursing has been overwhelmingly European, and the strong values of the founders of the International Council of Nurses (ICN), American Lavinia Dock and Englishwoman Ethel Bedford Fenwick, have shaped the development of nursing around the world. It should be no surprise therefore that the international history of nursing reflects a series of consistent themes: religious sisters, Nightingale, reform of servant-style nurses, medical reform, hospital modernization, the professionalization of nursing and regulation. Although these components are indeed common elements in the development of contemporary healthcare systems and the health professions, the critical detail that provides the social, cultural and political context to the development of nursing and health-care in a particular society is frequently overshadowed, if not entirely absent, from the historical narrative. It defies belief that nursing in Brazil, Japan or Kenya could be simple variations on a theme yet we know very little about these distinctive stories, and worse still, nurses seldom know the story of the development of their profession in their own countries. In 2006, Dr Barbra Wall and Sioban Nelson were speakers at the first Danish nursing history conference held in Koldingfjord organized by Danish nurse historian Susanne Malchau Dietz. It was during that conference that we found ourselves subject to the persuasive power of the remarkable Kirsten Stallknecht, former president of the ICN and the Danish Nurses Association. A keen historian of nursing and a profound internationalist Kirsten challenged us to work with the ICN to develop a forum for nursing history for nurses from around the world. Thus the Nursing History Section was founded. The first step was to create an international group of nurses and to develop a submission for the ICN to urge them to support nursing history and to provide a forum at the Biennial and Quadrennial Congresses. Links were made to nursing history groups across the world, including Brazil, Spain, Australia, the US, Canada and the UK. Colleagues around the world were enthusiastic about the idea of an international forum that would provide the opportunity for scholars, professional leaders and students of history to bring to light the diverse and complex stories of the development of the profession across the world. Given that the story of nursing is so closely connected to the organization of the healthcare system and the education system, as well as gender, class, race and colonialism, telling the story of nursing is also a way of telling the story of one’s country. ICN agreed to support an initial meeting of the group at the Quadrennail Congress in Durban, South Africa in 2009. At that first meeting, we had no idea what kind of response we would receive from ICN members but we felt it important to provide a forum for the discussion of nursing history at this international meeting and to listen and learn from speakers who shared the story of the evolution of nursing (and often their professional associations) in their countries. As it transpired, we were overwhelmed by delegates who signed up to speak. Given that this was the first ICN meeting to be held in Africa, we decided to give the floor to African nurses and see if there was a way we could incorporate the other submissions into a report for the journal Nursing History Review (which is forthcoming 2011). Over the course of 2 hours, we heard reports by nursing leaders from Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda, Milawi, Mauritius and Togo. It was just a small sample of African countries. The speakers were not historians, nor indeed scholars of any kind. They were all passionate to share their complex stories of colonialism, and the way it shaped the evolution of the profession and its indelible impact on their education and healthcare systems. Several speakers referred to quite remarkable oral history projects where they were interviewing midwives and nurses trained in colonial times, and recording the story of national and African leaders. To our knowledge, this was the first time the histories of nursing in these countries had been shared with an international audience. That it was an emotional event for the speakers and the audience underlines the fact that history reflects and constitutes identity. For these nurses, to speak publically of their distinctive history, where the development of the nursing profession parallels the evolution of their countries from colonialism to independence, was an important milestone. As a follow-up to this meeting, the ICN decided that this history group did not meet the requirements to be officially constituted as a network; however, they were pleased to agree to include history as a section in congress programmes and to engage the group in that process. We are therefore pleased to announce that the next ICN meeting, which will be held in Malta in May 2001 under the overarching theme ‘Nursing driving access, quality, and health’ (see details at http://www.icn.ch/index.html), will for the first time include a history theme. Please submit abstracts for this section. We would also like to welcome all interested people to attend the History Section meeting. If you would like to be a part of our history email group, and thereby receive periodic announcements about history meetings, fellowships and information about interesting publications from historians around the world, please email Dr Barbra Wall at wallbm@nursing.upenn.edu. As the History Section continues to develop and the group of nurses engaged in and interested in nursing history around the world grows, it is hoped that we will achieve our goal of bringing together different voices to witness and support nurses in the development of their distinctive histories and to mentor emerging nursing history scholars. If you would like to be part of this group of nursing historians, particularly if you are interested in assisting nurses to create and conserve their historical resources, please contact Barbra Wall or Sioban Nelson to get involved.

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