Numbers, narratives, and nursing history

Abstract

This work is intended to foster dialogue on moving beyond a nearly uniform reliance on purely qualitative accounts, in the form of narratives, to portray nursing’s past. To this end, this work demonstrates the manner in which one type of quantitative approach broadened understanding of the relative importance of educational background as a factor in completing training among women who entered an early hospital-based nursing program. Primary source data includes detailed records from a Midwestern hospital school of nursing, covering the period from 1897 to 1937. In regard to educational background, this research suggests that a high school diploma was not an asset in completing training. Concerning the larger methodological issue, it emphasizes that progress in nursing history, as in other areas of social science research, demands that we use all of our abilities for quantitative and qualitative understanding.

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