Whittaker, JoAnn Magda2024-08-152024-08-1519901990https://hdl.handle.net/1828/20099The Graduate Nurses' Association of British Columbia (GNAOC), following the professionalization agenda set by North American nursing leaders in the nineteenth century, worked. to establish control of nursing education and nursing practice. This control, granted by the provincial Nurses' Act in 1918, legislated only minimal standards of "approved" schools of nursing. Although the Association licensed graduates as registered nurses, registration was voluntary, not mandatory. Throughout the 1920s and the 1930s, the nursing leaders in the GNABC adopted strategies to standardize and in,prove the intellectual content of the nursing schools' curricula and to encourage graduates to register with the Association. In 1935, the Nurses' Act was revised and incorporated the improved standards nursing leaders had sought and legislated mandatory registration but limited it to graduate nurses working in the hospitals with schools of nursing. Nursing was an occupation dominated by women. Gerner, society's perception of the proper role of women, impeded the progress of the GNAOC. Nursing leaders had to compromise to the needs of others in order to have the legislation passed. Improvements were implemented, reflecting the changes in women's lives rather than the efforts of the nursing leaders. Progress in professionalization remained illusory.199 pagesAvailable to the World Wide WebThesis