Posted on

CSHM/CAHN Conference 2021

Join us virtually for the 2021 joint conference for the Canadian Society for the History of Medicine and the Canadian Association for the History of Nursing. Registration information available here.

I’m presenting my research on ventilation on June 1st at 1:30 PST. More information on the panel available below:

13:30-14:50 PDT / 16:30-17:50 EDT
Session C2 Technology, Materiality, and Medical Knowledge | La technologie, la matérialité et la connaissance médicale

Chair and Commentator/Présidente et commentatrice : Shelley McKellar

An open source “PROMIS”: The development of the MUFFIN electronic medical record, 1988-2000, * Daniel Huang

The Impact of Sports and the Athlete in Shaping Medical Knowledge, Matthew Mossey

Air, Ventilation, and Fumigation: Creating Healthy Environments in British Naval Hospitals and Hospital Ships, Erin Spinney

Affective Containment at Panama’s Palo Seco Leprosarium, Caroline Lieffers

Posted on

Society for Military History Conference 2021

This past weekend I virtually attended the SMH meeting in Norfolk, Virginia. It was great to be able to present my research on nursing and hospital ships with such great colleagues. Here is the information about our panel.

Panel Title: New directions in British naval healthcare during the long Eighteen Century

Matthew G. Neufeld (University of Saskatchewan): Neither Logically Necessary nor Necessarily Inevitable: Contrasting Views on Permanent Naval Hospitals in England during the War against Spain

Erin Spinney (University of Lethbridge): Women’s Labour, British Naval Hospital Ships, and a System of Medical Care, 1775-1815

Catherine S. Beck (University of London): “The Boast of a Generous Nation”: Treating Insanity in the British Navy in the Long Eighteenth Century

If you want to watch my presentation it is available below!

Video of Women’s Labour, British Naval Hospital Ships, and a System of Care.
Posted on

Nursing Clio “Beyond Florence” Blog Post

I was so excited to take part in Nursing Clio’s ‘Beyond Florence’ series! The goal of the ‘Beyond Florence’ series was to examine nursing history beyond Florence Nightingale in 2020 the Year of the Nurse and Midwife. As Dr. Kylie Smith states in the series introductory post “to focus only on Florence, or to claim her as the most important nurse of all time, hides the contribution of other types of nurses, and nursing care, and it reinforces the white, Anglocentric view of what it means to be a nurse.”

My piece “Black Before Florence: Black Nurses, Enslaved Labor, and the British Royal Navy, 1790-1820,” considers the work of Black nurses in West Indian British Naval Hospitals.

Check out all the ‘Beyond Florence’ articles here.

Posted on

HSTM Seminar at Oxford

I’m happy to be back at Oxford for the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine Seminar on Monday May 13th! Come and hear “Women’s Labour and British Naval Hospitals and Hospital Ships 1775-1815” at 16:00 in the History Faculty Lecture Theatre on George Street. Coffee will be available from 15:30.

Posted on

Audio Recording of A Species of Knowledge Presentation

The audio of my presentation “Seniority, Experience and On-the-job Training at British Naval Hospitals 1775-1815” from the April 5 symposium A Species of Knowledge: Women and Medicine 1750-1850 is now available on SoundCloud! Thank you to the Birkbeck Centre for Nineteenth-Century Studies for the recording. Find links to the other presentations as well as the keynote by Prof. Hillary Marland here.

Posted on

AAHN: Christy Award

My PhD dissertation, “Naval and Military Nursing c. 1763-1830,” has been awarded the American Association for the History of Nursing Teresa E. Christy award.  You can download my dissertation here.

The purpose of the Teresa E. Christy Award is to encourage new nursing history investigators, and to recognize excellence of historical research and writing done while the researcher was in a student status. The Christy Award is given for doctoral dissertations.

Posted on

American Association for the History of Nursing

Library and Archives Canada-Bibliothèque et Archives Canada / PA-029622

Excited to be heading to San Diego for the 2018 AAHN conference.  It is my first time presenting a joint paper with my colleague Glenn Iceton!  Our paper examines frontier nursing activities by Anglican missionaries Isaac and Sadie Stringer in the Yukon.  The paper specifically considers the gendered and colonial dynamics of healthcare delivery in the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries among whaling and indigenous communities on Herschel Island.

Join our panel at 1 pm on September 14 in Point Loma A.

Missionary Nurses 
1. Sisters of Mercy: The walking Nun’s Siouxland Journey & Experiences in nursing-Diane Smith

2. American Missionary Nurses negotiate a place in the mission: The politics of application, assignment and resignation-Lydia Wytenbroek

3. Sadie and Isaac Stringer, Herschel Island and Northern missionary healthcare in the late-19th Century-Erin Spinney, Glenn Iceton

Posted on

Environmental History Workshop

I had a great time at the Inaugural Environmental History Workshop this past Monday!  Our panel (composed of all individually submitted abstracts) meshed so well!

Healthy Environments, Wolfson Room NB01 (Chair: Vanessa Taylor, University of Greenwich)

Rebecca Wright, University of York, ‘Heating Gotham: environments of health and energy in New York City and beyond, 1900–1950’

Erin Spinney, University of Oxford, ‘Nursing the built environment: environmental medicine in British naval hospitals, 1790–1815’

Tayler Meredith, University of Birmingham, ‘“Eclipsed in such a Cloud of Sulphur”: sunlight and health in early modern London’

The full conference program is available here.