Few career opportunities were available to minority women in Appalachia in the first half of the 20th century. Nursing offered them a respected, relatively well paid profession and--as few physicians or hospitals would treat people of color--their work was important in challenging health care inequities in the region. Working in both modern surgical suites and tumble-down cabins, these women created unprecedented networks of care, managed nursing schools and built professional nursing organizations while navigating discrimination in the workplace. Focusing on the careers and contributions of dozens of African American and Eastern Band Cherokee registered nurses, this first comprehensive study of minority nurses in Appalachia documents the quality of health care for minorities in the region during the Jim Crow era. Racial segregation in health care and education and state and federal policies affecting health care for Native Americans are examined in depth.

Nursing History Review, an annual peer-reviewed publication of the American Association for the History of Nursing, is a showcase for the most significant current research on nursing history. Regular sections include scholarly articles, over a dozen book reviews of the best publications on nursing and health care history that have appeared in the past year, and a section abstracting new doctoral dissertations on nursing history. Historians, researchers, and individuals fascinated with the rich field of nursing will find this an important resource. Included in Volume 26... Different Places, Different Ideas: Reimagining Practice in American Psychiatric Nursing After World War II Evolving as Necessity Dictates: Home and Public Health in the 19th and 20th Centuries “Women’s Mission Among Women”: Unacknowledged Origins of Public Health Nursing The Triumph of Proximity: The Impact of District Nursing Schemes in 1890s’ Rural Ireland More than Educators: New Zealand’s Plunket Nurses, 1907–1950 To Care and Educate: The Continuity Within Queen’s Nursing in Scotland, c. 1948–2000

Untold thousands of black North Carolinians suffered or died during the Jim Crow era because they were denied admittance to white-only hospitals. With little money, scant opportunities for professional education and few white allies, African American physicians, nurses and other community leaders created their own hospitals, schools of nursing and public health outreach efforts. The author chronicles the important but largely unknown histories of more than 35 hospitals, the Leonard Medical School and 11 hospital-based schools of nursing established in North Carolina, and recounts the decades-long struggle for equal access to care and equal opportunities for African American health care professionals.

African Americans today continue to suffer disproportionately from heart disease, diabetes, and other health problems. In Caring for Equality David McBride chronicles the struggle by African Americans and their white allies to improve poor black health conditions as well as inadequate medical care—caused by slavery, racism, and discrimination—since the arrival of African slaves in America. Black American health progress resulted from the steady influence of what David McBride calls the health equality ideal: the principle that health of black Americans could and should be equal to that of whites and other Americans. Including a timeline, selected primary sources, and an extensive bibliographic essay, McBride’s book provides a superb starting point for students and readers who want to explore in greater depth this important and understudied topic in African American history.

Nursing History Review, an annual peer-reviewed publication of the American Association for the History of Nursing, is a showcase for the most significant current research on nursing history. Regular sections include scholarly articles, over a dozen book reviews of the best publications on nursing and health care history that have appeared in the past year, and a section abstracting new doctoral dissertations on nursing history. Historians, researchers, and individuals fascinated with the rich field of nursing will find this an important resource. Included in Volume 28... “Service is the Rent We Pay”: The Complexity of Nurses’ Claims to Their Place in Social Justice Movements The American Red Cross “Mercy Ship” in the First World War: A Pivotal Experiment in Nursing-Centered Clinical Humanitarianism The Nurses No-One Remembers: Looking for Spanish Nurses in Accounts of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) The Norwegian Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (NORMASH) in the Korean War (1951–1954): Military Hospital or Humanitarian “Sanctuary?” Matriarchs of the Operating Room: Nurses, Neurosurgery, and Johns Hopkins Hospital, 1920–1940

"The authors demonstrate how U. S. nurses have worked throughout their history to restore patients to health, teach health promotion, and participate in disease preventing activities. Recounting those experiences in the nurses' own words, the authors bring that history to life, capturing nurses' thoughts and feelings during times of war, epidemics, and disasters as well as during their everyday work. The book fills a gap in the secondary literature on...the history of nursing that can be useful in these times of great social change. It is a “must read” for every nurse in the United States!" --Barbra Mann Wall, PhD, RN, FAAN; Director of the Eleanor Crowder Bjoring Center for Nursing Historical Inquiry; University of Virginia; From the Foreword For over four hundred years, a diverse array of nurses, nurses' aides, midwives, and public-minded citizens across the United States have attended to the healthcare of America’s equally diverse populations. Beginning in 1607 when the first Englishmen landed in Virginia, and concluding in 2016 when Flint, Michigan, was declared to be in a state of emergency, this expansive nursing history text for undergraduate and graduate nursing programs examines the history of the nursing profession to better understand how nursing became what it is today. Grounded in the premise that health care can and should be promoted in partnership with communities to provide quality care for all, this history analyzes the resilience and innovation of nurses who provided care for the most underprivileged populations, such as slaves on Southern plantations, immigrants in tenements in Manhattan's Lower East Side, and isolated populations in rural Kentucky. It takes into account issues of race, class, and gender and the influence of these factors on nurses and patients. Featuring nearly 300 photos, oral histories, and case examples from varied settings in the United States and beyond, the narrative discusses major medical advances, prominent leaders and grassroots movements in nursing, and ethical dilemmas that nurses faced with each change in the profession. Chapters include discussion questions for class sessions as well as a list of suggested readings. Key Features: Examines the history of nursing during the last four centuries Links challenges for nurses in the past to those of present-day nurses Includes oral histories, case examples, boxed highlights, call-outs, discussion questions, archival sites, and references Covers drugs, technological innovations, and scientific discovery in each era Demonstrates progression toward “A Culture of Health” as described by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Stories from doctors, nurses, and therapists dealing on a daily basis with the opioid crisis in Appalachia should be heartbreaking. Yet those told here also inspire with practical advice on how to assist those in addiction, from a grass-roots to a policy level. Readers looking for ways to combat the crisis will find suggestions alongside laughter, tears, and sometimes rage. Each author brings the passion of their profession and the personal losses they have experienced from addiction, and posits solutions and harm reduction with positivity, grace, and even humor. Authors representing seven states from northern, Coalfields, and southern Appalachia relate personal encounters with patients or providers who changed them forever. This is a history document, showing how we got here; an evidenced indictment of current policies failing those who need them most; an affirmation that Appalachia solves its own problems; and a collection of suggestions for best practice moving forward.