Title: "Who Would Know Better Than the Girls in White?" Nursing Imagery in Postwar Advertising, 1945 - 1950

Abstract: Examining nursing imagery in the period after the Second World War, scholars have concluded that nurses were generally portrayed as threatening, oversexed, and pitiful characters, representing contemporary opposition to women's labor force participation. My analysis of advertisements in mass-market magazines challenges this interpretation by demonstrating that nurses regularly appeared as trustworthy advisers and that they were depicted performing skilled work including dispensing medicine and assisting in surgery. Acknowledging a complicated relationship between the nurse in postwar advertising and contemporary domestic ideology, I argue that these images are critical to understanding the full range of nurses' representation in postwar mass culture.

Time: 12:15 PM
Place: Claire M. Fagin Hall, School of Nursing, University of Pennsylvania
Room 2019, 2U Conference Room
The Bates Center Seminar Series features scholarly papers and presentations on the history of nursing and health care and welcomes all interested individuals.