Main description:

Assembling scholars from nursing, women's studies, geography, native studies, and history, this volume looks at the experience of nurses in Newfoundland and Labrador, northern Saskatchewan, northern British Columbia, and the Arctic and features essays on topics such as Mennonite midwives in Western Canada, missionary nurses, and Aboriginal nursing assistants in the Yukon. Contributors illuminate the larger themes of religion, colonialism, social divisions, and native-newcomer relations. Special attention is paid to nursing in Aboriginal communities and the relations of race to medical work, particularly in connection to ideas of British ethnicity and conceptualized meanings of "whiteness." An informative collection of fascinating works, Caregiving on the Periphery provides insight into the history of medicine in Canada and the long-established importance of women for the country's wellbeing.

Contents:

Acknowledgments Introduction / Myra Rutherdale PART ONE The Multifaceted Lives of Midwives 1 "Monthly" Nurses, "Sick" Nurses, and Midwives: Working-Class Caregivers in Toronto, 1830-91 / Judith Young; 2 Catching Babies and Delivering the Dead: Midwives and Undertakers in Mennonite Settlement Communities / Marlene Epp; 3 The Edge of Empire: The Working Life of Myra (Grimsley) Bennett / Linda Kealey PART TWO Writing Their Own Lives: Life Writing in Nursing History 4 From the Streets of Toronto to the Northwest Rebellion: Hannah Grier Coome's Call to Duty / Elizabeth Domm; 5 Part of a Large Company of White Folk: Making 'Whiteness,' Marking Gender in the Letters of Nurse Margaret Butcher / Mary-Ellen Kelm; 6 Nursing in the North and Writing for the South: The Work and Travels of Amy Wilson / Myra Rutherdale PART THREE Regulating Nurse Training and Professional Boundaries 7 Training Aboriginal Nurses: The Indian Health Services in Northwestern Canada, 1939-75 / Laurie Meijer Drees; 8 Conflict and Resistance to Paternalism: Nursing with the Grenfell Mission Stations in Newfoundland and Labrador, 1939-81 / Heidi Coombs-Thorne PART FOUR Northern Nursing, Natives, and Newcomers 9 A Negotiated Process: Outpost Nursing Under the Red Cross in Ontario, 1922-84 / Jayne Elliott; 10 Caring, Curing, and Socialization: The Ambiguities of Nursing in Northern Saskatchewan, 1944-57 / Lesley McBain; 11 Baby Rats and Canada's Food Rules: Nurses as Educators in Northern Communities / Judith Bender Zelmanovits Contributors; Index