On All Frontiers: Four Centuries of Canadian Nursing

Introduction

Introduction Christina Bates, Dianne Dodd, and Nicole Rousseau On All Frontiers: Four Centuries of Canadian Nursing introduces the rich and complex history of nursing from the beginning of Canadian history to the present. We hope to reach a broad audience of interested Canadians, but especially women, nurses, and other health care professionals . We invite all to learn about the practice of nursing, not only in the hospital, but on many frontiers: in the home, in the community, in remote outposts, on the battlefield, and in the innovation of health care practices to serve Canadians from coast to coast. This book represents the third stage of a unique joint venture to bring together and make accessible important nursing collections, initiated through a partnership among the Canadian Nurses Association, the Canadian Museum ofCivilization, the Canadian War Museum, and Library and Archives Canada. The Canadian Nursing History Collection On All Frontiers is built upon the expanding body of research into nursing history that has been made possible by the pioneering efforts of nursing school alumnae associations; religious nursing orders; nursing history associations; federal, provincial, and municipal nursing organizations; and individual nurses to preserve their history through creating archival and artifact collections. In particular, the Canadian Nurses Association (CNA) has, since its inception in 1908, produced and collected a substantial quantity of written material , photographs, and artifacts, documenting its own activities and those of other institutions involved in nursing in Canada and around the world. This special collection is now housed in three public history institutions. In 1999, the CNA, faced with inadequate storage facilities and a change in mandate that eliminated the impetus for collecting, made the decision to dispose of its unwieldy collection. This caused considerable uproar among its constituents, and the CNA realized how important these archival and material things were to nurses' sense of their own identity, and put a great deal of effort into finding a suitable repository. The CNAturned to the federal institutions, first sparking the interest of the Canadian Museum of Civilization (CMC), whose curator was interested in enhancing collections relating to women's history. The Canadian War Museum then came on board to assess the significant Nursing Sisters Association of Canada (NSAC) collection (originallycompiled by the NSAC, this collection had been donated to the CNA and formed part of their holdings), and the National Archives of Canada (now Library and Archives Figure 1 International Red Cross Florence Nightingale Commemorative Medal Photographer: Harry Foster Canadian Museumof Civilization, 2000.111.102 This medal, presented to Helen McArthur, is the highest award for nursing given by the Red Cross. Canada) became involved in the disposition of the extensive written, photographic, and audiovisual materials. Although parts of the collection would be entrusted to the institutions best able to look after them, the intellectual integrity of the collection as a whole had to be maintained. Thus a landmark partnership agreement among these three cultural institutions and the CNAwas signed in June of 1999, creating the Canadian Nursing History Collection, as the combined holdings are now called. This collaborative approach will preserve and present a remarkable heritage, and will avoid the pitfalls that occur when varied collections are dispersed. The archival material at the NationalArchives consists of 9000 photographs, 1600 audiovisual materials , and 35 metres of textual records representing the Canadian Nurses Association, the Nursing Sisters Association of Canada, and the Helen K Mussallem collection (all sub-collections of the CNAholdings). Approximately 950 documented artifacts related to civilian nursing were deposited at the Canadian Museum of Civilization,and 150 military nursing artifacts at the Canadian War Museum.1 The Nursing History Collection has been augmented by materials already in our holdings such as, for example, the medals belonging to Georgina Fane Pope, matron-in-charge of the nursing sisters during the South African War. Subsequent donations have enriched our collections such as minutes and cashbooks for four Victorian Order of Nurses (VON) branches at the National Archives, and 167 nurses' caps, dating from 1895 to 1983, at the CMC. 1957 Portraying Heroes Don Mayne, Toronto lawyer and artist The SARS crisis in Toronto occurred two years after the infamous 9/11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. After that disaster, New York firefighters were celebrated as heroes worldwide. But after the SARS crisis, nurses received no international accolades. What was the difference? Photographers focused on exhausted firefighters in New York. Photographers were prohibited from entering SARS units. The sooty...