In 1886, Newark City Hospital opened a training school for nurses in New Jersey. With the dawn of a new century women began to demand rights that had been denied them, and nurses too demanded changes in health care and higher education. For the first time, On Duty offers a highly readable account of the struggle for professional autonomy by New Jersey nurses and reveals how their political and legislative battles mirrored the struggle of women throughout the country to redefine their roles in society.

FRANCES WARD is the David R. Devereaux Chair of Nursing in the College of Health Professionsat Temple University. The founding dean of the School of Nursing at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, she also maintains a clinical practice serving urban residents.

"Ward covers a long chronological span and provides one part of a complicated history that examines how nurses gained power and used the legislative and professional status."

"Frances Ward brings intelligence, first-hand experience, enthusiasm, and incredible depth of research to her work. On Duty is the sentinel publication on the evolution of nursing as a profession in New Jersey and makes a significant contribution to the literature on nursing history in the United States."

"Frances Ward presents a detailed and intelligent history of the professional evolution of nursing. Historians of nursing and health care, and scholars of the history of professions, will find in On Duty a lucid case study of social, political and legal forces that shape nursing. The depth of her connection to her subject matter, and her passion for her topic make this an important addition to the literature.
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"Frances Ward's scholarly labor delivers a history with fidelity to the vision, intelligence, resourcefulness, and political awareness of nurses committed to advancing the discipline. No one is better suited to tell this story. Ward's role in the continuously evolving history of nursing in New Jersey has been a substantial one."

"Ward highlights organized nurses' role in aligning their political forces with other national and local women's movements in their struggle for equality. Her account of the legislative battles and their successes, as well as the individual risks taken, provides today's nurse activists insight and hope for the future of healthcare."

"The history of nursing in New Jersey provides a good benchmark from which to examine the history of nursing in other states. The author ends her well-researched book with a reflection on her personal experiences as a nurse practitioner and her freedom to be able to practice as an autonomous nursing professional. This book fills an important gap in the history of nursing."

"On Duty provides the much needed context to understand the rich and complicated history of nursing in New Jersey. This particular history also provides the background to think about how we might move forward as a profession in meeting the health care needs of those entrusted to our care. On Duty promises to make an important contribution to this emerging area of study."