University of Illinois Press Nursing Civil Rights: Gender and Race in the Army Nurse Corps (Women, Gender, and Sexuality in American History)

In Nursing Civil Rights, Charissa J. Threat investigates the parallel battles against occupational segregation by African American women and white men in the U.S. Army.   As Threat reveals, both groups viewed their circumstances with the Army Nurse Corps as a civil rights matter. Each conducted separate integration campaigns to end the discrimination they suffered. Yet their stories defy the narrative that civil rights struggles inevitably arced toward social justice. Threat tells how progressive elements in the campaigns did indeed break down barriers in both military and civilian nursing. At the same time, she follows conservative threads to portray how some of the women who succeeded as agents of change became defenders of exclusionary practices when men sought military nursing careers. The ironic result was a struggle that simultaneously confronted and reaffirmed the social hierarchies that nurtured discrimination. Review "Particularly strong in the themes of civil rights and gender equality and adds important information on subjects that have been traditionally underrepresented in academic literature. Threat has made a substantial contribution to this important subject and has started a stimulating discussion." --Susan Malka, author of Daring to Care: American Nursing and Second Wave Feminism "By combining narratives of African American women and white men and analyzing the Army Nurse Corps' policies regarding both race and gender, Threat links together gender and racial equality to provide a new framework in which to understand the 1960s civil rights movement… Threat's arguments make Nursing Civil Rights an important work in understanding the gender and racial structure of the Army Nurse Corps in the 1960s and 1970s."-- Register of the Kentucky Historical Society   "This book links nurses’ struggles to broader drives for racial and gender justice. Highly recommended."-- Choice "A welcome amendment to the history of nursing in the United States. . . . Threat's examination of nursing's organizational evolution yields new insights about the racial politics of alliance and division."-- Women's Review of Books   "Charissa J. Threat offers an original way to view the struggles of professional black women and white men in nursing…This book is more than a history of two groups struggling for acceptance in the cultures and politics of professional nursing and the military. Threat's discussion about the complexities surrounding the concept of equality allows the reader to consider larger societal issues about inclusion."-- American Historical Review   From the Author Charissa J. Threat is an assistant professor of history at Spelman College. About the Author Charissa J. Threat is an assistant professor of history at Spelman College.