An engaging study of the dilemmas faced by American nursing, which examines the ideology, practice, and efforts at reform of both trained and untrained nurses in the years between 1850 and 1945.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction: the dilemma of caring -- Part I. The Nurse and the Hospital Before Training -- 1. 'Professed' nursing: from duty to trade -- 2. Chaos and order in hospital nursing -- Part II. The Trained Nurse: An Apprentice to Duty -- 3. Character as skill: the ideology of discipline -- 4. Training as work: the pupil nurse as hospital machine -- 5. 'Strangers to Boston': who becomes a nurse -- 6. Nursing as work: divisions in the occupation -- Part III. The 'Re-Forming' of Nursing -- 7. Professionalization and its discontents -- 8. Nursing efficiency as the link between service and science -- 9. The limits of 'collaborative relationships' -- 10. Great transformation, small change.