‘Works of many hands’: Nurses’ autograph books and military hospital culture in and after the First World War

Sloane Mather, Rebekah 2025. ‘Works of many hands’: Nurses’ autograph books and military hospital culture in and after the First World War. PhD Thesis, Cardiff University. Item availability restricted.

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Abstract

This thesis makes a case for the importance of the albums nurses compiled during the First World War for our understanding of the medical, emotional, and cultural history of the period. Military nurses and VADs working in hospitals from 1914-18 recorded personal thoughts and experiences in personal documents of diaries and letters. They also collated autograph albums in collaboration with their patients. While the diaries and letters have received sustained scholarly attention, only limited work has been done on the albums. Offering valuable, intriguing insights into soldier-patients-nurses interactions, emotional dynamics of care, and containing a variety of contributions of personal messages, poems, and artworks, these albums provide new perspectives on a significant period of great societal change. The thesis charts the position of nurses’ albums within the history of album-making with established conventions, developed over centuries. The war-time context drives a significant shift in the selection of contributors with albums becoming indicative of hospital communities, reflecting the transitory soldier-patient-nurse relationship and attesting to the hero status of the ordinary soldier. Traditional recurring themes of friendship and remembrance at significant moments of parting are explored in the context of wartime nursing. I examine the nurses’ presence in the albums and how they share their wartime nursing inspirations and aspirations with their soldier-patients. I use albums in conjunction with other creative works produced in the hospitals, particularly hospital magazines, to explore aspects of care as perceived by both nurse and patient. I consider the album’s use as a tool for extending rehabilitative therapy within a consideration of wider therapeutic practices in military hospitals. An important historical source previously only used to support wider research into First World War nursing, this thesis seeks to enhance our understanding of the soldier-patient-nurse relationship through the prism of the albums.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Date Type:	Completion
Status:	Unpublished
Schools:	Schools > English, Communication and Philosophy
Subjects:	P Language and Literature > PR English literature
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	15 October 2025
Last Modified:	16 Oct 2025 14:37
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/181699

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