Nurses in Red - putting nurses back into history

First started in April 2022, the group are supported by Alice White, a historian and Wikimedian and Teresa Doherty, RCN Professional Lead for the History of Nursing. Statistics show that only 19.98% of Wikipedia’s pages are about women. This group set out to raise awareness of the contribution of nurses to society throughout history on Wikipedia. To date, pages that the members of the group have contributed to have been viewed 10.1 million times. In this blog we describe our experiences as part of the HONF Nurses. The group meets online on a monthly basis to problem solve and share their work. Between meetings the members develop new wiki pages and improve the content of existing pages to raise the profile of nurses globally. A Teams page is used for asking questions, accessing relevant resources, making suggestions or asking a group member to review a draft of their work. Here, four of the regular contributors, reflect on their involvement.   

Sue Campbell 

I developed an interest in nursing history when I realised the voice of the profession was underrepresented. I joined the initial training for the Nurses in Red project but didn’t have a clear idea of where to start. I used the list of RCN Fellows and identified those who were deceased and did not have a Wiki page. I then chose ones that were local to me or had done some similar work to my career. I have learned so much about individual nurses. The more wiki pages you read the more gaps in the nursing history you find. While there is no time commitment specified as part of the project I average 2-3 hours a week but this does fluctuate depending on other commitments. Writing articles that fits with the encyclopaedic style of Wiki does take time in terms of ensuring people are notable and that points you write are supported with evidence. 

Vari M Drennan 

I joined the project to learn more about the history of nursing, learn new skills and do this as part of a group. I’ve found throughout my nursing, health visiting and academic career that being part of a team is much more interesting, and often more fun than working alone as well as improving productivity. I was saddened, but not surprised, to learn how much Wikipedia favours men and the male voice. I was also shocked to discover there were few UK nurses on Wikipedia – they are mostly missing even from the pages of the most prestigious and renowned UK hospitals. So, my mission is to make sure there is a nurse (usually matron as the most notable in Wikipedia terms) on every London hospital Wikipedia page. London because I’ve spent most of my working life here but I do find myself adding nurses and matrons to hospital pages all over the country.  I’m having such fun and learning a lot not just in my researching but from the rest of the group. Even my mission is a bit of a slow process – I keep getting side tracked to other interesting health service history (currently writing about London County Council health services). 

Dr Sarah Rogers 

When I first signed up to join the project, I had just completed my PhD. Although I was rather daunted by the technical skills that I might need to learn, I was keen to help add nurses' names to Wikipedia and redress the gender imbalance in the online encyclopaedia. During my research I had increasingly found that so often nurses were hidden or even written out of history. I became increasingly aware that these women were rarely mentioned in histories about the hospitals which they ran, and often their descendants did not know about their nursing careers. The project has enabled me to add many of these nurses, and whilst most are not notable enough to have their own Wikipedia entry, I have added many onto existing Wikipedia hospital pages, and written up several new pages about old hospitals to add one, or more matrons. I really enjoy the challenge of learning new skills as part of a supportive team and look forward to our monthly meetings.

Sue Yasee 

I "cut my Wikipedia teeth" so to speak with Harriett Cassells (1926-2017), a fever and infection control nurse from Northern Ireland. She was active in the Northern Ireland RCN and awarded Fellowship of the RCN in 1985. In 1974 Harriett remedied what she saw as a wrong situation in that parents had hitherto not been allowed to visit children who were being nursed in source isolation because of infectious disease.  I probably should mention challenges, one of which is "focus".  I have discovered a rich playground in terms of historical nursing journals on the RCN website.  I have a reader's card for the British Library, access to the London Archives and the Wellcome Foundation who have a wealth of historic journals and newspapers.  All this means that many things attract my interest and I tend to go off in all sorts of directions. Initially I found Wikipedia a bit daunting. However, it's good to learn new things. I am getting to know more about Wiki and realize its strengths. The group are really friendly and highly supportive.

If you are interested in this wiki learning event on Feb 3 2025 1-3pm, please email: honf@rcn.org.uk for more information.