Week 9: Wars and Medicine Notes

 world war one:

started with 403 nurses, grew to 21,480 

women could not vote at this time

272 died of disease

only a small amount were given awards

women were warned away from being doctors on the field

African American nurses and Immigrant nurses were not allowed overseas

nurses were ignored so much they had to give them ranks (should have had them in the first place anyway)

many nurses later were depicted as a romantic concept, which somewhat devalued them after the war socially

Nurses had to be between 25 and 35 years of age, unmarried, and graduates of hospital training schools with more than 50 beds.

this eliminated black women as they were only able to be nurses through small, segregated hospitals with less than 50 beds

this was later dropped after an epidemic

world war two:

59,000 World War two nurses

saved many lives and had "astonishingly low" rate of death

less than four percent of treated soldiers on the field died of disease or their injuries later on

 56 black nurses were admitted in 1941 as a quota after thousands applied and were told they could not be admitted due to being black, and the quota of black women allowed to nurse was only dropped by the end of the war 

black nurses were only allowed to treat black soldiers if stationed at camps, had to eat in segregated halls and faced segregated towns and were made to only treat black soldiers and prisoners of war which felt like a betrayal 

nurses were discouraged from nursing after the war and many were forced to become waitresses or factory workers instead due to offices not wanting to hire women

underpaid nurses and made them work long hours if they were nursing

made a nurses guild in order to gain better wages, with one slogan being "you needed the nurse, now the nurse needs you!"