ORGANIZE OR PERISH : THE TRANSFORMATION OF NEBRASKA NURSING EDUCATION, 1888--1941

Between 1888 and 1926, seventy nurse training schools opened in Nebraska. By 1938, fifty-seven were closed. The transformation of Nebraska nursing education from haphazardly organized apprenticeship programs in dozens of hospitals to highly organized programs in thirteen schools is of interest to educational, women\u27s, medical, and Progressive Era historians. Professional nursing, an occupation derived from women\u27s domestic sphere, emerged at the height of an organizational revolution associated with Progressive Era emphases on workplace specialization, bureaucratization, standardization, and rationalization. The organizational revolution, legislative reform, and the professionalization ambitions of elite national and local nursing leaders shaped Nebraska nursing education before World War II, particularly through the office of the State Director of Nursing Education and through statutory specification of National League of Nursing Education curricula. (Nebraska was one of only three states to legally require NLNE standards). Training school record books and Nebraska Board of Nursing inspection reports provided major sources of information about Nebraska\u27s nursing students and programs. Most Nebraska nursing students before World War II came from small towns and rural areas and entered urban training schools. Attrition rates hovered at fifty percent, and most students who left training were dismissed, without hearing, for minor rule infractions. Affiliation requirements formed an important part of training in smaller schools. For many years schools sent students to large general hospitals in Denver, Chicago, Minneapolis, and Kansas City in order to meet state and NLNE standards. The thirteen training schools that survived tended to be well-organized and managed by a superintendent who had stayed with the school for several years. Nursing students\u27 education before entering training school gradually improved, as did student living conditions, health, and training school experiences, but some constants remained, notably school disciplinary methods and student exploitation as cheap labor offering a peculiar and valuable service to the hospital