A Respectable Occupation: - University of Hertfordshire Research ...

this respect, while those taking up employment away from the home were
on less sure ground. As the need to find employment for a daughter became
more pressing, the issue of respectability was initially overcome by adopting
an occupation that was under constant female supervision, and nursing or
being a governess were acceptable in this respect. 101 Working for a medical
practitioner would not, on the face of it, offer constant female supervision
and at some point there must have been a change in attitude on the part of
parents such that they accepted dispensing as a respectable occupation for
their daughters. It could be that this change in attitude was related to the
long standing connection between women and healing that has featured
throughout the thesis. Women were the natural choice as entrants into the
nursing profession; notably, in the early stages, middle class women were
involved in an unpaid supervisory role. 102 We saw in chapter 1 how in the
early days of medicine it was the lady of the house who, in the absence of a
doctor, treated the members of her household and even other people in the
locality. 103 It was natural therefore in the nineteenth century for a woman
to extend this caring function beyond her household to include those who
were poor and sick. 104 Middle class women supported voluntary hospitals,
made charitable donations to the poor and helped with the administration of
the Poor Law and the workhouses. 105 As a consequence they must have
come into contact with local general practitioners who were appointed as
101 Jordan, „Suitable and Remunerative Employment‟, 435.
102 Summers, Angels and Citizens, p. 95.
103 Wyman, „The Surgeoness‟, 23.
104 King, Women, Welfare and Local Politics, p. 15.
105 King, Women, Welfare and Local Politics, p. 11.
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