| Abstrakt: |
The donation of two aprons worn by a Norland Nanny in the 1930s to the theatre department of Oregon State University led us to examine the dress of child nurses from 1850 to 2015 (Figures 12.1, 12.2). While a great number of studies describe the clothing worn by domestic servants, little research has focussed on the clothing of child nurses. Using the actual aprons, period photographs, and historic texts, we explored the nature of these artefacts and the dual history of nursemaids and nannies in the United States and the United Kingdom. Our clothing history study begins in the mid-nineteenth century when the child nurse was one of the occupations for an enslaved woman on a Southern plantation. Our study ends with the twenty-first century because of the recent interest in the nannies of Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis, the children of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, who often appear in photographs with their parents and their Norland Nanny. We found that although a standard uniform was not worn in the 1850s, some components of dress (headwear, apron, bodice scarf), were consistently linked to the child nurse. In the late nineteenth century, a standard uniform was developed, and in the twentieth century, as training became important, uniforms were increasingly worn to identify which particular college or training school in the United Kingdom the professional nanny had attended. This identification remains important in the professional habitus of nannies who work for elite British families in the twenty-first century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
