In connection with the new year-long exhibition Nursing the Revolution, the Bates Center invites scholars and professionals working in areas related to early American care work, nursing, medicine, and the Revolutionary War to a special symposium.
Hosted by: Bates Center
In 2026 the Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing at the University of Pennsylvania will open its year-long exhibition, Nursing the Revolution. To help mark this event and in partnership with the McNeil Center for Early American Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, the Bates Center invites scholars and professionals working in areas related to early American care work, nursing, medicine, and the Revolutionary War to join us for a special symposium.
The dynamics of civilian care communities and eighteenth-century medical networks profoundly influenced the medical care available to both the Continental and British armies during the Revolutionary War. In turn, the experience of the Revolutionary War as a major health crisis shaped the organization of healthcare labor in the early national United States.
This symposium will bring together scholars of eighteenth-century nursing; early American healers; Indigenous, African, and European care practices; social and medical community care networks; household labor and domestic medicine; hospitals and institutional healthcare spaces; cleanliness, contagion, and health crisis; and Revolutionary War era military medicine and battlefield care.
This 1-day event will provide an opportunity for scholars in these fields to make fruitful connections and share methodological approaches for working with fragmentary archival materials, while contributing to ongoing (and timely) conversations about whose labor is centered in Revolutionary War histories. The event will include panel discussions with experts in these areas, an exhibit talk about Nursing the Revolution, by guest curator Dr. Meg Roberts (University of Edinburgh), and a reception and informal tour of the exhibit at the Barbara Bates Center.
Keynote Speaker: Susan Brandt, PhD, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs
Exhibit Lecture: Meg E. Roberts, PhD, University of Edinburgh, UK
Panelists:
Featured image: The compleat midwife's companion: or, the art of midwifry improv'd. [Jane Sharp, 1724]. Wellcome Collection.
The University of Pennsylvania, located in the heart of the city, was at the center of the dramatic events of 1776 and the Revolution that followed. 250 years later, partners across the university are exploring how history can help us better understand the present and create a sustainable and inclusive future.