Bjoring Center Events
Fall 2026 History Forums
All forums are held virtually from 12 p.m. - 1 p.m. (ET) No registration is required.
SEPTEMBER 29
"Harbor of Hope: Nurses of the Boston Floating Hospital"
Arlene Keeling, PhD, RN, FAAN
Zoom link
In his 1899 annual report for the Boston Floating Hospital, Dr. Samuel Breck wrote: "Success or failure in the treatment of young babies depends largely on the minute to minute care of the conscientious nurse – without which the physicians’ work is of very little value."
The competent care provided by trained graduate nurses was key to the Floating Hospital’s success, and this presentation focuses on their central role, working with physicians on a hospital boat in Boston Harbor, to reduce infant mortality in the city during the period 1894-1927. Dr. Keeling's forthcoming book, Harbor of Hope: Nurses of the Boston Floating Hospital will be published in October by the University of Massachusetts Press.
Dr. Arlene Keeling is the Centennial Distinguished Professor Emerita at the UVA School of Nursing, and Director Emerita of the Bjoring Center for Nursing Historical Inquiry.
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OCTOBER 20
“Unknown Facts: Rosa A. González’s Los Hechos Desconocidos and the Creation of Puerto Rico’s Nurse Examining Board”
Cathy Cabrera-Figueroa
Cathy Cabrera-Figueroa is a PhD candidate in the Department of History, City University of New York
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NOVEMBER 10
“From Lagos to London: Colonial Recruitment and Nigerian Nurses in the UK, 1940-1960”
Mosunmola Ogunmolaji
Mosunmola Ogunmolaji is PhD candidate in the Department of History, University of Florida.
For a recording of a talk, please contact the Bjoring Center's program manager.
"Striking for the Patients: Medical Civil Rights and Labor Equity at the South Carolina State Hospital (1964-1984)" by Bradford Pelletier, PhD (April 2026)
"Race and Reparations in the History of Psychiatry" by Kylie M. Smith, PhD, recipient of the Bjoring Center's 2026 Agnes Dillon Randolph Award (March 2026)
"125 Years of Army Nursing: Learning from the Past to Shape the Future" Roundtable. Speaker: Charissa Threat, PhD. Guest panelists: LTC Monique S. Jesionowksi, DNP, APRN, AGACNP-BC, ACCNS-AG; Col. Maria Pescatore, MSN, APRN, AGCNS-BC; Gretchen M. Wiersma, DNP, RN, CNE, CHSE; and Terri L. Yost, PhD, RN, FNP-BC (February 2026)
"The 1926 Nurse Strike in Colonial Korea" by Sonja M. Kim, PhD (November 2025)
"The Nurses of Ellis Island" by Michelle Hehman, PhD, RN, NPD-BC and Arlene Keeling, PhD, RN, FAAN (September 2025)
"Indigenous Nurses and Health Advocacy in Rural Oaxaca, Mexico, 1934-1970" by Marissa L. Nichols, PhD (April 2025)
"The 'Brazilian Ladies of Toronto' and the Rockefeller Foundation in the 1940s: A Transnational History of Nursing" by Luciana Barizon Luchesi, PhD, RN (December 2024)
"Dynamics of Prejudice: Antiracist Nursing Education, 1968-1978" by Cory Ellen Gatrall, PhD, MFA, RN (October 2024)
"Bait, Switch, and Sue: Filipino Nurses’ Solidarity against Exploitative International Recruitment Practices, 2005-2009" by Andre A. Rosario, PhD, RN (September 2024)
"Unearthing Black Midwifery Stories in Virginia" by Linda Janet Holmes, recipient of the Bjoring Center's 2024 Agnes Dillon Randolph Award (April 2024)
"Neither the Colonizer Nor the Colonized: Thai Nursing Students in the Philippines and New England, 1920-1931" by Christine N. Peralta, PhD, recipient of the Bjoring Center's 30th Anniversary Research Fellowship (March 2024)
“Filling the Unforgiving Minute with Sixty Seconds’ Worth of Distance Run: Barbara Fassbinder, Nursing, and AIDS in the U.S., 1986-1991” by Karissa Haugeberg, PhD (February 2024)
"Narrating a Life of Care: Hindsight and Challenges of Interpretation in the Study of Religion and Health" by Angela Xia, PhD candidate in religious studies, recipient of the Bjoring Center's 30th Anniversary Research Fellowship (November 2023)
"Gay Nurses/Straight Health Care: Toward a Queer History of Nursing" by Jess Dillard-Wright, PhD, MA, RN, CNM, recipient of the Barbara Brodie Nursing History Fellowship (November 2023)
"Hospital City, Health Care Nation: Race, Capital, and the Costs of American Health Care" by Guian McKee, PhD (September 2023)
"History and Memory of Filipino Nurses in U.S. Health-Care Delivery" by Catherine Ceniza Choy, PhD, recipient of the 2023 Agnes Dillon Randolph Award (April 2023)
"Medicine of Care: Oral History of Nurse Practitioners in New York State" by Morag Martin, PhD (March 2023)
"Black Nurses’ Silent Struggle to Integrate Hospital Nursing in the North, 1950-1970" by Hafeeza Anchrum, PhD, RN (Nov. 2022)
"Understanding the Experiences of Male Nurse Practitioners, 1980 to Present" by Marcus D. Henderson, MSN, RN (Oct. 2022)
"A Virtual Roundtable on the History of Black Midwives" with Wangui Muigai, PhD; Michelle Drew, DNP, MPH, CNM, FNP-C, C-EFM; and Gertrude Fraser, PhD (Feb. 2022). Download the History of Black Midwives Roundtable transcript.
