Barbra Mann Wall, Barbara Bates Center
Barbara Bates Center
Time: 6:30 PM
Location: College of Physicians (19 South 22nd St)
Women from various social classes, both black and white, religious and secular, and trained and untrained, were part of a group of over 20,000 who left their homes, convents, schools, and plantations to nurse the sick and injured during the Civil War. Issues of race, class, gender, and religion both united them and also became sources of conflict, especially when they came into contact with male physicians and surgeons. Women’s experiences in wartime, in hospitals, on hospital ships, and at battle scenes, reveal an overlapping of duties and complicate the very meaning of the word “nurse.” Join us for this lecture that will tie directly into our current exhibition Broken Bodies, Suffering Spirits: Injury, Death, & Healing in Civil War Philadelphia.
Speaker: Barbra Mann Wall, PhD, RN, FAAN, Associate Professor, Evan C. Thompson Endowed Term Chair for Excellence in Teaching, Associate Director, Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing
This lecture is the first in the College's new series honoring former Fellow Bernard Behrend. The lecture is made possible by a generous donation from his family. Beyond his own medical career, Dr. Behrend was interested in Civil War medicine, Napoleon, industrial and occupational health, music, aerospace and naval medicine, and the lecture series will reflect these interests.