Transforming Maggie May to Miss Pu: Neoculturalism...
Transcript of Transforming Maggie May to Miss Pu: Neoculturalism...
Transforming Maggie May to Miss Pu:
Neoculturalism Through Missionary Nursing in North China, 1924-1943
Jennifer M.L. Stephens, BSN, MA, RN, OCN
PhD student (Nursing), University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, CANADA
Introduction
Early History of Nursing in China
Worlds Collide:
Neoculturalism
The Isabella Fisher Hospital, School of Nursing
Tientsin, North China (1881-1943)
Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the American Methodist Episcopal Church (WFMS)
Margaret “Maggie” May Prentice
1892
Born in eastern Colorado, USA
1901
Tells family she is meant to be a nurse missionary in China
Early 1900’s
Training at Colorado Teacher’s College
Rural school teacher in Colorado
1917-1921
Bachelors of Religious Services (BRS):
Chicago Training School for City, Home, and Foreign Missions
1921-1923
NURSE DIPLOMA:
Wesley Memorial Hospital School of Nursing (Chicago, IL)
1924
Sent by the Women’s Foreign Missionary Society of the
Methodist Church to work at the Isabella Fisher Hospital
(Tientsin, China)
1926-1934
Superintendent, School of Nursing, I.F.H.
Nursing leader in professionalization of nursing in China.
1934-1937
Superintendent of the I.F. Hospital
1937-1938
Banished from China due to the start of the 2nd Sino-Japanese
War.
Traveled internationally with nurse friend
Chu-ke Wen-P’ing taking courses and lecturing at nursing
schools (UK, Russia, US).
1938
Return to occupied Tientsin/I.F.H. to resume SON. Declared
Japanese prisoner.
1941
Nursing examiner at Peking Presbyterian Hospital
1942-1943
Imprisioned at Japanese concentration camp.
Forced to leave China.
1943-1944
Lived in Colorado.
Diploma in Journalism from Denver University.
Return to Tientsin in late 1944
1944-1948
Resumed duties as Superintendent of the I.F. Hospital
1949
Final banishment from China with establishment of Communist
People’s Republic of China
1949-1952
Lived in U.S.
1952-1987
Nurse missionary at the Ganta Mission (Liberia).
Published Unwelcome at the Northeast Gate (1966)
1988
Death in Northglenn, Colorado
At the I.F.H., cross-blending of multinational
cultural, social, economic, religious, political,
and practical factors caused the creation of a
new and unique type of nursing and nursing
culture. At first the nurses resisted modification
of Nightingale canons. Nursing epistemology
had distinct grounding in Western, allopathic,
and Christian traditions but was forced to shift
for a Chinese audience. Culture transplanted
from graft (missionaries) to host (China)
suggests instead a project in neoculture.
Neoculturalism in this context refers to the
alteration of the traditional (modernism), with
emphasis on structure and defined limits, into
something new and undefined (post-
modernism).2 Neoculturalism can also be
associated with thick (underlying) versus thin
(peripheral) culture. 3
A neocultural influence is most apparent when
comparing Maggie May’s host of letters and
documents from the 1920’s with those from the
1940’s and beyond, such as her
autobiographical novel Unwelcome at the
Eastern Gate. While she influenced the
development of nursing in China, her
relationship with the Chinese changed her from
a Nightingale/Western nurse into a transcultural
nurse-hybrid, one who embraced many
cultures. Perhaps this flexibility reflects an
essence of nursing.
Founded to bring Western medicine to non-
Western countries, hospitals such as the
Isabella Fisher Hospital in Tientsin, North
China perpetuated allopathic principals of
health care. In nursing these were often
referred to as ‘Florence Nightingale Canons.’
The F.N. model became the focus of
missionary nurse work far and wide.
Missionaries like Maggie May viewed the
Nightingale concepts of nursing as separate
from medicine (physician) and of nursing
being a calling.
1881: I.F.H. for Women and Children founded by Canadian Dr. Leonora King, supported by the WFMS.
1888: First Chinese nursing education program based on the Florence Nightingale/Western model was established by
American nurse Ella Johnson in Fuchou. 4,5
1912: The Nurses’ Association of China (NAC) was formalized and headed by missionary nurses.
1915: I.F.H. rebuilt, reopened, and soon became one of the largest nursing schools in China. 6
1920: First baccalaureate program at the Peking Union Medical College.
1930: The Chinese government opened the first public nursing school.
1930’s: As Superintendent, Maggie May forged a strong alliance between the I.F.H. and other nursing schools including the
Peking Union Medical School, considered the center of nursing education in China for several decades.
Rural Teacher
Farming Background
MAGGIE MAY PRENTICE
玛格利特 梅 普伦蒂斯 “Margaret May Prentice” in Chinese.
“Miss Pu” was given to her by Chinese nurse colleagues right
before her banishment in 1937. “Pu” is a North Chinese
surname indicating that she was honourably adopted.1
Buddhism
Family
Friends in US/China
References
1. M.M. Prentice, Unwelcome at the Northeast Gate (n.p.: Inter-collegiate Press, Inc.,
1966).
2. A. Papakostas, Civilizing the Public Sphere: Distrust, Trust and Corruption
(London: Palgrave McMillan, 2012).
3. W. Mishler and D. Pollack, “On culture, thick and thin: Toward a neo-cultural
synthesis,” in D. Pollack and J. Jacobs (eds.) Political culture in Post-Community
Europe (London: Ashgate, 2003).
4. K. Chen, "Missionaries and the early development of nursing in China," Nursing
History Review: Official Journal of The American Association For The History of
Nursing 58, no. 4 (1996): 129-149.
5. D. Smith and S. Tang, “Nursing in China: Historical development, current issues,
and future challenges,” 大分看護科学研究 (Nursing Research), no. 5 (2) (2004):
16- 20.
6. Gwen Sherwood and Huaping Liu, "International collaboration for developing
graduate education in China," Nursing Outlook 53, no. 1 (2005), 15.
Miss Pu