Theatrical entertainments and kind words: nursing the insane in Western North Carolina, 1882-1907.

This paper argues that at the turn of the 19th century, nurses at the State Hospital in Morganton, North Carolina (now called Broughton Hospital) played critical roles in successfully implementing the best-known therapeutic methods of the time. They were also instrumental in developing the hospital's visibility and acceptance in rural western North Carolina. When the Hospital established its first nurse training school in 1895, this corps of first-generation western North Carolinians practising institutional nursing was highly esteemed in their field. Their skills not only served the community outside of the Hospital's walls, but were also sought out by other private and state asylums.