The Health Visitor as Mother's Friend: A Woman's place in public health, 1900–14

Parts of the turn-of-the century debate about health visiting as an appropriate form of public health work for women are traced and a range of reactions, not least those of the women involed, are discussed and analysed.

Abstract

This paper traces aspects of the turn-of-the century debate about health visiting as an appropriate form of public health work for women. Far from simply demonstrating women's progress in achieving a place beside men in the publlic sphere of employment, health visiting, it will be argued, provides a particularly interesting case-study of the struggle between the sexes to define the contribution which women might appropriately make. Three quite different models of woman's place are identified, and a range of reactions, not least those of the women involed, are discussed and analysed.