16th to 18th Century

16th to 17th Century ::

• Dissapearance of all nursing activity records. Tradition of men in nursing changed dramaticaly (Mackintosh, 1997).

18th Century ::

• Reappearance of nursing activity records (Mackintosh, 1997).
• Development of large voluntary hospitals such as Manchester Royal Infirmary in England (Mackintosh, 1997).
• Men were responsible for only male patients in these hosptials (Evans, 2004).

19th Century

Early 19th Century ::

• Continued emergence of voluntary hospitals, workhouse infirmaries, and asylums (Mackintosh, 1997).
• Men were hired only to tend to vthe violent and cusotidal nautre of this type of occupation (Mackintosh, 1997).
• Men were called 'keepers' or 'attendants', rather than nurses (Mackintosh, 1997).
• This type of nursing was unattractive - There was a dark stigma that stuck with the incurability of mental illness (Mackintosh, 1997).

Mid 19th Century ::

• Military nurses served in the Crimean War (1854-1856) (Genua, 2005).
• Often these men were called away to fight in the war instead (Genua, 2005).
• Therefore, women slowly took over the role of the nursing soldiers (Genua, 2005).
• Charles Dicken's novel, Martin Chuzzlewit, portrayed nurses as people of low status, little education, uncertain honesty and uneven temperament like the character Nurse Sarah Gamp (Mackintosh, 1997).
• Emergence of Florence Nightingale's Nightingale Training School. She felt "every woman was nurse, and women who entered nurse training were doing only what came naturally to them as women." (Evans, 2004, p.323). Therefore men were deemed unfit for nursing, and banned from these schools.
• Formation of family based institutional model: "The Father" was the male physician; "The Mother or Women of the Household" were the nurses; and "The Children" were the patients -- Men had no place in this model (Evans, 2004).

Late 19th Century ::

• European model created in Voluntary hospitals based on nursing sisterhood (Mackintosh, 1997).
• Victorian Class structure prevalent - further division of labor between the sexes (Mackintosh, 1997).
• In the asylums, men faced disadvantages by a new breed of 'lady' nurses. They faced feminish, snobbery and sexual taboos that were hard to resist (Mackintosh, 1997).
• Education of male nurses were marked inferior to those of general nurses.
• Reform from public sector, formation of Temperance Male Nurse Co. (1894) & Royal Army Medical Corps by Sir Alfred Keogh (Mackintosh, 1997).

20th Century

Early 20th Century ::

• Formation of Nurses Registration Act - full membership only offered to males (Mackintosh, 1997).
• Only 8 hosptials in UK had training available to male nurses (Mackintosh, 1997).
• From 1921 to 1938 there were 97,028 feamle nurses, but only 435 male nurses (Mackintosh, 1997).
• Males were treated as homosexuals and students were only granted half the nursing education time compared to women (Mackintosh, 1997).
• 1900 schools of nursing were available, producing over 25,000 nurse graduates, but 99% were female (Evans, 2004).

Mid 20th Century ::

• Creation of Society of Registered Males Nurses (1937) by Edward Glavin to help men in nursing to have improved professionalism image as well as improvements in their standards and professional skills.
• The Army Nurse Corps in the US completely banned men from bein nurses in the military.
• Male nurses dropped from 7% in 1919 to 2% in 1940 (Evans, 2004).
• Second World War created great nursing shortage (Mackintosh, 1997).
• Nurses Registration Acts approved in 1949 (Mackintosh, 1997).
• This caused a great expansion of male nurses--542% increased in men in nursing (Mackintosh, 1997).

Late 20th Century ::

• Naturalism of nursing as women's occupation still remained (Mackintosh, 1997).
• Men were deemed not naturally fit to perform caring activities, while male nurses who could, were not 'real' men (Mackintosh, 1997).
• Continuation of poor working conditions, low pay and long hours (Mackintosh, 1997).
• Men were still tied with less respected areas of nursing work (e.g. asylums, sub-military services, and private sectors) (Mackintosh, 1997).