Research Centers - University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing

The Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing:
Care to Change the World by Exploring the Past
The mission of the Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing is to ensure the
generation of historical knowledge, scholarship, and research on healthcare and nursing history in the
U.S. and across the globe. We believe this knowledge will lead to better understanding of contemporary
healthcare issues.
Our priority at this time is to enlarge our discipline’s understanding of the importance of a historical
standpoint to the development of effective health policy and patient care strategies through the writing
of scholarly papers, brochures, and books that tie nursing’s history directly to current health topics. To
put this in more direct terms, how can we think about strategies to relieve health disparities if we don’t
understand how they developed, what has worked or not worked in the past, and how we can use this
information to make a better future for all Americans?
Our work is supported by the Center’s endowment, as is an extensive archival collection of photographs,
artifacts, and the personal and professional papers of nursing leaders, schools of nursing, visiting nurse
associations, and voluntary associations. We and many other scholars from across the world use the
Center’s collections to bring the knowledge provided by history methodology to bear on important
contemporary healthcare solutions.
JULIE FAIRMAN, PhD, RN, FAAN
Center Director and Class of 1940 Bicentennial Term Associate Professor of Nursing
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