The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA

Abstract #37879

Cynthia A. Connolly, PhD, RN, History of Public Health and Medicine, Columbia University School of Public Health, 722 West 168th St, 9th Floor, New York, NY 10032, 215-572-9007, cac1@nursing.upenn.edu

Purpose: This study examined an experiment of one of New York City's premier charitable organizations, the Association for Improving the Conditions of the Poor [AICP]. In an effort to prevent the spread of epidemic diseases and provide health care to all who needed it, the AICP founded a Bureau of Nursing Service in the early twentieth century.

Questions: What social, cultural, political, scientific, and economic phenomena shaped AICP nurses' practice? In an era in which society is debating the benefits of private charitable initiatives versus government funded programs, are there lessons from the past that might prove instructive?

Methodology and Sources: Social history methodology was used. Primary sources included AICP archives and New York City Department of Health records.

Findings: Functioning with few resources in a tumultuous era, BNS nurses used creativity and ingenuity to obtain services for their indigent clients. However, many patients feared BNS nurses because of their authority; they not only could withhold direct aid if they felt it warranted, they also possessed police powers to recommend the removal of 'dangerous' or 'non-compliant' patients from their homes to institutions. Though their efforts were grounded in the science of the era, many BNS nurses' interventions, at least according to today's standards, were heavily influenced by ethnic, racial, and class biases.

Significance: Explicating past successes and failures fosters better differentiation between those practices that are efficacious and those that merely have social or political appeal.

Learning Objectives:

• Describe the Bureau of Nursing Practice of the New York Association for Improving the Conditions of the Poor.
• Compare practice differences between AICP nurses and Department of Health nurses during the study era.
• Apply an historical framework to contemporary debates concerning private charitable initiatives versus publicly funded programs

Keywords: History, Public Health Nursing

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: Association for Improving the Conditions of the Poor, 1900-1940 [merged with the Charity Organization Society in 1939 to become the Community Service Society]
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.