LibGuides: Library Resource Guides: Nursing and midwifery history

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Lowitja by Stuart Rintoul & Lowitja O'Donoghue
Call Number: 994.0049915 RIN 2020

Biblio = 5022
One woman's war and peace by Sharon Bown
Call Number: 610.73092 BOW 2016

Recommended reference sources

Nurses and midwives in Australian history : a guide to historical resources by Noeline Kyle, R Lynette Russell & Jennifer Blundell
Call Number: 610.730994 KYL 2015
Biblio = 4525

General nursing history texts

Nurses of Australia : the illustrated story by Deborah Burrows
Call Number: 610.734309944223 BUR 2018
Biblio = 4831
The growth of a profession : nursing in Victoria 1930s-1980s by Judith & Bob Bessant
Call Number: 610.7309945 BES 1991
Biblio = 4841
Celebrating nursing : a visual history by Christine E. Hallett
Call Number: 610.7309 HAL 2010
Biblio = 3132

Biographies of nurses and midwives

Australia's controversial matron : Gwen Burbidge and nursing reform by Judith Godden
Call Number: 610.73092 GOD
Don't stand on the grass : memoirs of early nursing in Melbourne by Fleur Finnie
Call Number: 610.73092 FIN 1996
From the heart : true stories by Australian nurses by Amanda Tattam
Call Number: 610.7309 TAT
Lucy Osburn, a lady displaced by Judith Godden
Call Number: 610.73092 GOD 2006
Notes on Nightingale : the influence and legacy of a nursing icon by Sioban Nelson & Anne Marie Rafferty
Call Number: 610.73 NEL

ISBN: 9780801449062
Yes sister, no sister : my life as a trainee nurse in 1950s Yorkshire by Jennifer Craig
Call Number: 610.73092 CRA 2010
Not your average nurse by Maggie Groff.
Call Number: 610.73092 GRO 2017

Biblio = 4825

Aboriginal nurses' experiences

In our own right: Black Australian nurses' stories by Congress Of Aboriginal And Torres Strait Islander Nurses Members
Call Number: 610.73092 GOO
In our own right : Black Australian nurses' stories [videorecording] by Cam Slamm
Call Number: 610.73092 SLA 2007

'Some of us pushed forward and let the world see what could be done': Aboriginal Australian nurses and midwives, 1900-2005 by Odette Best & Don Gorman (2016)
Article from Labour History 111:149-164

more... less...

This paper locates the voices of Aboriginal nurses and midwives which only emerged in publications from the 1950s onwards. It seeks to privilege the voices of Aboriginal nurses and midwives, and recognise their contributions to the nursing and midwifery professions. It identifies two key developments in Australian history that influenced the acceptance of Aboriginal women into a career in nursing and midwifery: the gradual decline of policies of protection, segregation and assimilation, and the shift of nursing education from hospitals into the tertiary sector.

Do not pay for any articles, always check with the ANMF (Vic Branch) library. Submit an article request form (free for members)

Victorian hospital histories

5.30, nurse! : the story of the Alfred nurses by Helen Paterson
Call Number: 610.730994 PAT
Bricks or spirit : the Queen Victoria Hospital, Melbourne. by Emma Russell
Call Number: 362.11099451 RUS 1997
Bye-Bye Charlie : stories from the vanishing world of Kew Cottages by Corinne Manning
Call Number: 362.385099451 MAN 2008
Caring for our children : the history of nursing, Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne by Margaret McInnes
Call Number: 610.9945 MCI
Domestic comforts they had none : a pictorial history of the Bendigo Hospital by David Lloyd.
Call Number: 362.11099454 LLO 2003
Earning our badge : Group G nurses 1959 to 1962, Alfred Hospital, Melbourne : celebrating 50 years to 2012 by Judith Salvadori
Call Number: 610.73 SAL
Healing Hands: A history of Mildura Base Hospital - The final fifty years by Vincent Tassone
Call Number: 362.11 TAS
Melbourne's Mercy : a history of Mercy Private Hospital by Susan Priestley
Call Number: 362.11099451 PRI 1990
Memories of Inglewood Hospital and new beginnings with Inglewood and Districts Health Service by Barbara Mason
Call Number: 362.11099451 MAS 2009
A most ingenious hospital : a history of Sandringham and District Memorial Hospital 1940-1990 by Harry W. Nunn.
Call Number: 362.11099451 NUN 1990
Being there: nursing at 'The Melbourne', Victoria's first hospital by Susan Sherson
Call Number: 610.7340994 SHE 2005
A place on the hill : the history of St Vincent's private hospitals in Melbourne 1906-1993 by Michael Tyquin
Call Number: 610.9945 TYQ 1997
A profession's pathway : nursing at St Vincent's since 1893 by Mary Sheehan
Call Number: 610.7309945 SHE 2005
The Royal Children's Hospital : a history of faith, science and love by Peter Yule.
Call Number: 362.19892 YUL 1999
Sex and suffering : women's health and a women's hospital, the Royal Women's Hospital, Melbourne 1856-1996 by Janet McCalman
Call Number: 362.110994 MCC 1998
Ways of a hospital : St. Vincent's Melbourne 1890s-1990s by Bryan Egan
Call Number: 362.11099451 EGA 1993

Outback & rural nursing

Angels in the outback: the Australian inland mission : a century of service to the outback by Max Griffiths
Call Number: 362.1 GRI
Bush nurses: inspiring true stories of nursing bravery and ingenuity in rural and remote Australia by Annabelle Brayley (Ed.)
Call Number: 610.73430994 BRA 2013
Nurses with altitude : a collection of stories by the nurses and their colleagues at the Royal Flying Doctor Service in Western Australia by Gaye Richardson
Call Number: 616.980213 RIC 2008

Nurses in war

Devotion : stories of Australia's wartime nurses by Robyn Siers
Call Number: 940.47594 SIE 2013
Willingly into the fray : one hundred years of Australian Army nursing by Catherine McCullagh
Call Number: 355.3450994 MCC 2010
Just wanted to be there : Australian Service nurses, 1899-1999 by Richard Reid
Call Number: 355.3450994 REI 1999
Guns and brooches : Australian army nursing from the Boer War to the Gulf War by Jan Bassett
Call Number: 355.345082 BAS 1992
The History of Australian Nurses in the First World War : An Australian College of Nursing Centenary Commemorative Trilogy by Ruth Rae Three volume set, incorporating From Narromine to the Nile: the impact of the Great War on one Australian Family, Scarlet Poppies: The Army Experience of Australian Nurses During the First World War, Veiled Lives: Threading Australian Nursing History into the Fabric of the First World War, as well as supplementary material (A Nominal Roll of Australian Nurses who Served in the First World War).
Call Number: 940.47594 RAE 2015
Kitty's war : the remarkable wartime experiences of Kit McNaughton by Janet Butler
Call Number: 940.47 BUT 2013
More than bombs and bandages : Australian Army nurses at work in World War I by Kirsty Harris
Call Number: 940.47594 HAR 2011
Containing trauma : nursing work in the First World War by Christine Hallett
Call Number: 904.475 HAL
Oceans of love : Narrelle - an Australian nurse in World War I by Melanie Oppenheimer.
Call Number: 940.547642 OPP 2006
Bullwinkel : the true story of Vivian Bullwinkel, a young Army nursing sister, who was the sole survivor of a World War Two massacre by the Japanese by Norman Manners
Call Number: 940.547252 MAN 1999
Not now tomorrow : Ima nai ashita by Alice Bowman
Call Number: 940.547252 BOW 1996
With healing hands : the untold story of the Australian civilian surgical teams in Vietnam by Gary McKay & Elizabeth Stewart
Call Number: 959.7043 MCK 2009
Tears on my pillow : Australian nurses in Vietnam by Narelle Biedermann
Call Number: 959.70437 BIE 2004

Working conditions and collective action

Nurses at work : a history of industrial and occupational health nurses in New South Wales by Nancy Bundle & Jim Kitay
Call Number: 610.734609945 BUN 2017
More than just the money : 100 years of the Victorian nurses union by Ilsa Colson
Call Number: 610.7309945 COL
Enough is enough : the 1986 Victorian Nurses' Strike by Carol Fox
Call Number: MAIN 331.8928 FOX

Mental illness & psychiatric nursing

Out of the madhouse : from asylums to caring community? by Sandy Jeffs & Margaret Leggatt
Call Number: 362.20425 JEF 2020
The care that was by Harald Reischel
Call Number: 610.7368 REI 2003
Round the bend : a history of psychiatric nursing in Victoria, Australia by Natisha Sands & John Vokoun
Call Number: 616.890231 SAN 2013

Browse the ANMF (Vic Branch) Library History collection

Browse the History collection in the Library catalogue

Focus on specific aspects of nursing

All the little children : the story of Victoria's baby health centres 1917-2017 by Heather Sheard
Call Number: 362.1982 SHE 2017
Unmasked : a history of the Perioperative Nurses Group : the First Fifty Years 1957 - 2007 by Carollyn Williams
Call Number: 617.023 WIL
There's a bird in my hand and a bear by the bed - I must be in ICU : the pivotal years of Australian critical care nursing by Valda Wiles & Kathy Daffurn
Call Number: 610.736 WIL 2002

Nursing education & regulation history

The first of its kind : nurse education and training at the Northern District School of Nursing by Northern District School of Nursing Graduates Association
Call Number: 610.730711 NOR 2015
The act of nursing : a history of nursing regulation in Victoria by Katherine Sheedy
Call Number: 610.7309 SHE
Creme de la creme: a History of Nursing Education at the Geelong Hospital 1896 - 1996 and Beyond by Valerie Zielinski
Call Number: 610.7307 ZIE
In pursuit of nursing excellence : a history of the Royal College of Nursing, Australia, 1949-1999 by Russell Smith.
Call Number: 610.7306 SMI

Audiovisual resources

ANZAC girls by Roadshow Entertainment
Call Number: 791.437 REE 2013

Publication Date: 2013

3 DVD set
Round the bend : a history of psychiatric nursing in Victoria, Australia by Natisha Sands & John Vokoun
Call Number: 616.890231 SAN 2013
In our own right : black Australian nurses' stories by Cam Slamm
Call Number: 610.730922 SLA 2007

Web resources

Australian Nurses Memorial Centre
The ANMC was founded by Australian War Nurses who survived unimaginable adversity during the WWII - read some of their stories online.
Australian Nursing and Midwifery History Project
The ANMHP is hosted by the Department of Nursing at the University of Melbourne. It includes a biographical register, details of historic nursing organisations, and reference sources.
Australian Women who served - units & names
The Great War Forum site was created for discussion and research on all aspects of World War I
Encyclopaedia of Australian Science database
Features information about individuals, organisations, societies, institutions, and industries, including several biographies of Australian nurses and midwives.
Nurse training books at PROV
As part of a major Department of Health and Human Services records transfer, nurse training books from Fairfield are now available at the Public Records Office of Victoria collection. Contained within the four volumes that make up the series you can find entries for nurses in training.
State Library of Victoria Blog
Celebrating our nurses: the history of nursing in Victoria by Jane Miller posted 12 May 2023
Victorian Collections
Includes digitised photos, uniforms, and ephemera from a range of Victorian libraries, archives, museums and historical societies. eHive is another, similar resource.
Victorian Government Gazette
Search the lists of Midwives and lists of Nurses to find historical information including names, addresses, registration number, dates (of addition, change or removal from the register), and hospital (for nurses training):
• Midwives Registers: 1916-1956
• Nurses Registers: 1925-1956