Sandelowski (1997) suggested that from 1870-1940, emerging technology, defined as the "use of material objects to achieve practical human ends" (p. 4), divided American nursing into two periods-before and after World War II. Sandelowski (1997) presented the case that, throughout American nursing...

Above all else, patients with cancer during the early decades of the 20th century needed the care of nurses. As one physician wrote in 1913, the care of a patient with cancer under a physician's direction "often devolves upon the nurse, whether the case belongs to the curable or incurable class" (...

Dramatic forces evolving in the late 19th century contributed to the transformation of the clinical care of individuals with cancer. The building of cancer hospitals, reporting of increasing numbers of cancer cases, medical specialization, and the declared war on cancer contributed significantly to...