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Social History of Medicine Advance Access originally published online on March 14, 2007
Social History of Medicine 2007 20(1):131-146; doi:10.1093/shm/hkl085
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© The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for the Social History of Medicine. All rights reserved

‘Black Nurses in White’: Exploring Young Women's Entry into the Nursing Profession at Baragwanath Hospital, Soweto, 1948–1980

Simonne Horwitz*

* Department of History, University of Saskatchewan, 9 Campus Drive, Saskatoon SK, S7 N 5A5, Canada. E-mail: simonne.horwitz{at}usask.ca


  Abstract

This article explores the complex motivations and influences which persuaded black women to enter nursing between the late 1940s and 1980 in South Africa. It shows how black nurses actively negotiated and reshaped the images associated with a world-wide sisterhood within the context of what Shula Marks has called a ‘divided sisterhood’ in South Africa. The individual voices of nurses are heard through semi-structured interviews of nurses trained or employed at Baragwanath Nursing College. By analysing motivation and perspective, this article provides a more nuanced understanding of the way in which nurses adapted and defined their roles. During the period under discussion, Baragwanath Nursing College, which fell under the auspices of Baragwanath Hospital, developed into one of the largest training colleges for black nurses in South Africa, and probably the whole of the continent.

Keywords: South Africa; history of nursing; Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital; black women and professions


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